ABSTRACT
We investigated the knowledge of six social educators about the connection between the use of drugs and the offence practice of adolescents serving a social-educational measure in an open environment. The descriptive qualitative method was instrumented through semi-structured interviews, and the analysis was based on the interpretations that the social educators attributed to the use of drugs. To them, drug use is related to the historical conditions of social exclusion, emphasizing the difficulty of access to leisure and treatment services. The relation between drug use and the offence practice was observed in a little group of poly-drug users. A policy for these adolescents should not only take into account the infraction and the connection with drugs, but also the social suffering that has these events as an origin.
Keywords
adolescent; offence practice; drugs use; social suffering