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Objective. To identify factors associated with susceptibility, tobacco use and addiction in young people from 13 to 15 years of age, to determine conditions of risk and identify possible correlates to the development of public policies on smoking in Costa Rica. Materials and methods. Information available from the four rounds of the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) Costa Rica was used. It was based on a sample size of 11 540 youngsters from public and private schools. Indicators of interest and logistic regression models for smoking, susceptibility and addiction were estimated. Results. The prevalence of current consumption shows a significant decrease over the 14 years of the study (17.3% in 1999 and 5.0% in 2013) and, to a lesser intensity, in the index of smoking susceptibility (19.3% in 1999 and 12.4% in 2013). The proportion of young people with addiction has shown a significant increase in the same period. Conclusions. The conditions that explained the significant reduction in smoking prevalence and less susceptibility must be maintained and deepened to achieve full compliance of the MPower measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the level of drug use and its association with criminal offenses and related conditions in a sample of mostly young males, between 12 and 17 years of age, held in a national juvenile detention center (Centro de Formación Juvenil Zurquí) en Costa Rica in the years 2006-2008. A trained technician performed the interviews using a standard questionnaire designed by the Organization of American States, Drug Abuse Control Commission and used in several Latin-American countries. The questionnaire examines the juveniles' socio-demographic background, current charges, previous and current periods of detention, criminal background, and patterns of use of several categories of drugs, age of onset, social pressure, family contention, perceptions, and knowledge of information with regard to drug use. The juveniles interviewed for this study reported mostly the use of alcohol, tobacco and a variety of illicit drugs and, in most cases, there was a close relationship between drug use and the criminal offense. While the relation between substance abuse and criminal offence is not well known, the available evidence suggests that substance use exacerbates the criminal act and precedes it due to social and economic conditions, as well as other family/community factors. Additionally, the study finds that the offenders tend to begin experimenting with substances at earlier ages than non-offenders [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]