Abstract

CASTANO PEREZ, Guillermo Alonso  and  CALDERON VALLEJO, Gustavo Adolfo. Sociodemographic characteristics of heroin consumers in Medellin, Colombia. Psychol. av. discip. [online]. 2010, vol.4, n.2, pp.19-29. ISSN 1900-2386.

This article is based on the research project "Heroin consumption in Medellin and its Metropolitan Area. A case study" carried out under a mixed approach to explore and measure socio-demographic variables; consumer characteristics, consumption practices and related problems. The researchers interviewed 42 heroin consumers, a substance consumption that is its earliest stages in the country, contacted through treatment centers and also using the snowball technique using a semi-structured interview which was validated by experts, piloted and processed with Atlasti, version 5.5 for Windows. The study has the following findings: that most of the consumers are 18 to 23 year-old, single, childless males, middle class college students, with a family background of psychoactive consumption, and they began using at the age of 13 to 15. All of them had a history of poly consumption of psychoactive substances.

Keywords : consumption; heroin; consumer profile; consumption characteristics.

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