The Committee on Youth has tried to present a brief discussion of drugs which are primanly abused by adolescents. Emphasis was placed on those drugs whose properties might be relatively unfamiliar to pediatricians. Alcohol and tobacco were reluctantly omitted solely in the interests of brevity. Similarly, it was decided to omit footnotes and voluminous documentation, and to offer instead a list of general references to which the pediatrician might turn.
The controversy over marijuana arises in part because there is as yet no definitive answer to the question of whether fostering dependency on a chemical will necessarily lead to increased dependency in terms of a total life experience.