This particular study, which measured the prevalence of illicit drug use, concluded that heterosexual transgender individuals had a lower risk of use relative to their TGD SM counterparts. While heterosexuality has been widely accepted as a protective factor for cisgender populations, there is effectively no research examining the impact of sexual identity within the TGD community. Additionally, visual conformity represents a TGD-specific correlate that likely influences the TGD community’s predisposition to various forms of addiction. In fact, one study in particular determined that low levels of visual conformity increased one’s odds of nicotine use . The same study also determined that participants who had disclosed their trans identity were more likely to report nicotine use. Expanding the stratification of TGD to include dimensions other than gender identity could pinpoint a new group of highly at-risk TGD individuals that have been overlooked by traditional SM categorizations. It is important to note that one of the predominant reasons that TGD individuals experience higher rates of mental health challenges, addictions, and other presumptively negative outcomes is that of minority stress and stigmatization.
Living in a world where one experiences discrimination, harassment, and violence at interpersonal, institutional, and even ideological levels can result in TGD individuals seeking out additional coping mechanisms as compared to their cisgender counterparts . Simply being TGD by itself likely does not indicate an increase predisposition to addictive behavior; however, living in a hurtful and traumatizing world can, indeed, result in such behaviors. Understanding how to support individuals within this framework is key for clinicians in engaging their TGD clients and patients around addiction . It should also be noted that the vast majority of scales and instruments that are used to assess for addiction-related behaviors have not been validated on TGD participants, and rather, are often validated solely on cisgender individuals. In order to ensure these scales accurately measure what they purport to measure, future research must be conducted to norm these existing instruments on this population and/or create new instruments that can accurately measure addictive behaviors among this population. Similarly, the criteria for viewing some addictive behaviors can be viewed as transphobic, such as gendered rates for what is considered binge drinking, when there is no number of drinks noted for nonbinary individuals, and transgender women might be significantly taller and/or weigh more than cisgender women . Both research and practice must take these challenges into account when engaging TGD individuals.
The consumption of illicit drugs represents an important public health problem worldwide , contributing to morbidity and mortality . Nowadays, Europe has one of the highest percentages of students who reported lifetime use of any illicit drug, with 29% in the Czech Republic, followed by 28% in Italy. Besides, the most widely used illicit drug at least once in their life in Europe was cannabis , followed by other illicit substances , such as ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine, and LSD, among others . According to the survey on alcohol and other drugs in Spain , cannabis is by far the most widespread in Spain, obtaining in 2019 the highest value in its history , followed by cocaine . In the population aged 15–34, the prevalence of illegal substance uses at least once in their life, in Spain, were cannabis , cocaine , ecstasy , and amphetamines . The use of these substances is associated with multiple consequences, including traffic accidents, violence, infectious diseases, mental disorder, impaired psychosocial development, and suicide, between others, particularly in the young population. Among the likely contributors to the elevation of drug use during adolescence and in young people are maturational changes . In this line, in a study conducted in Spanish adolescents, the role of self-esteem and selfefficacy was highlighted, as was the importance of increasing the risk perception.
Besides, the authors highlighted the social influence of the family and the people around them on binge drinking, highlighting the importance of increasing parents’ awareness factors, communication skills, adequate family influence, parental supervision, and control . In addition, some authors also proposed that family environment and family support are key elements when starting to use drugs . Moreover, there are studies that consider people from dysfunctional families to be at higher risk of consumption . On the other hand, other authors highlight the importance of peer influences . A weak relationship has been observed between gender and consumption with a higher prevalence of drug use among men in particular, with the exception of sedative hypnotics, where use is higher among women . Furthermore, previous studies have shown that marital status may be related to substance use, although with mixed results . Only some of the studies performed to date have taken the age of onset of consumption into account, despite the importance of this variable.