drug phenone has gained global proportions in recent decades, at all levels of society. The association between young people, particularly poor, and the use of drugs, which is present in mid and public policies, has given rise to discussions and intervention that need to be analysed and problematic, which, as it does not consider the socio-economic and cultural situation of those young people, have accumulated poor results from the public point of view. This raises the need to reverse the order of the question and, in order to look at how best to treat young people using drugs, to start by understanding the social contexts and arrangements that allow them to be exposed to drugs and how they are exposed to them in their cotidian. This article is based on a search with young people from the periphery of a medium town of the rior Paulist, and discusses, from young people’s speech, the relativisation of the role of drugs as the primary source of their vulnerabilities. Used as a method the participating observation, in local public equipment, in addition to interviews and groups of activities. Young people’s discourse discloses issues such as violations of rights, restrictions on urban mobility, real or symbolic violence to which they are subject, as well as precarious employment relationships; factors that translate into greater vulnerability than drug issues.