Substance Use Disorder (also known as SUD) in young people may be serious - and should be distinguished from experimentation; Disorder implies that the use of substances is repeated, and that it causes impairment.

There are various ways to classify the seriousness of SUD (commonly a distinction is made between HARMFUL USE and DEPENDENT USE) but in Children and Adolescents we can also speak of "early at risk" and "late at risk" stages in the journey towards harmful use and dependence, as it is in the initiation and early progression phases that we meet most young people with Substance Use problems (direct external link to this table is here):

What to do for SUD

Assessment for SUD-Rx - (we use the abbreviation Rx to mean "treatment".)
Substance use disorder - treatment