ABSTRACT
The resources of any given society are limited. Consequently individuals have 'personal troubles' in coping with their day-to-day activities. Many individuals; although isolated from each other; share similar situational logic and this directs them to adopt the same tactics to ameliorate their personal troubles. When these troubles exceed their tolerable limits they become problems and 'public issue'. Public issues then are nothing but refractions and reflections of personal troubles of individuals. Two specific areas of major concern with their resultant problems facing Ghanaians currently and in fact the years ahead are the twin evils of so-called drug abuse and teenage pregnancy. It is the modest aim of this paper to demonstrate that what are considered problems are in reality effects of the 'structural' sources of 'contradictions' between the group that would be defined as the youth and the major institutional structures of society