The effects of drugs and alcohol on student's personal life and academic careers

Abstract

The following dissertation focuses on the negative effects of cannabis, alcohol and other illegal drugs on the personal life and academic career of students, to further explain, the branches within the academic career tackled are academic attendance and academic performance, while the personal life aspect refers to personal relationships, health (in relation to alcohol use only) and employment. The study aims to uncover the student’s opinion on the major consequences linked to the use of each drug, if they are perceived as a negative influence towards the areas previously mentioned, and from their responses establish which substance is perceived as most negative, which areas of the user’s life are most vulnerable to suffer consequences, and finally which substances are perceived as socially acceptable and which are not, and compare the results to the known literature.

The research is conducted via an opinion based online questionnaire with students from the University of Malta attending courses at the Faculty of Social Wellbeing, the data gathered from the participants is analysed using SPSS, the analysis is represented in the form of various tables and figures. The results reveal that students perceive all substances as a negative influence, however, illegal drugs and alcohol are perceived as more negative compared to cannabis by 10-30% on all areas enquired. Students find cannabis to be the least negative, however, a considerable number of students are uncertain of the effects of cannabis, students opinions show that the areas most vulnerable are health (alcohol use) and personal relationships. The following ranking depicts the least affected areas to the most affected areas on average from the perspective of students with regards to all the substances: absenteeism, academic performance closely followed by employment and lastly personal relationships. Students perceive alcohol use to be the most acceptable followed by cannabis and firmly oppose of illegal drug use with 83.5% of students. The findings can aid future awareness programs.