Teens were treated as bribe (9)
I believe the answer is:
sweetener
'bribe' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'teens were treated' is the wordplay.
'treated' indicates anagramming the letters.
'teens'+'were'='teenswere'
'teenswere' with letters rearranged gives 'SWEETENER'.
'as' is the link.
(Other definitions for sweetener that I've seen before include "Something tart could do with this" , "A blend of Eastern and Western English" , "Substance like sugar" , "Saccharin, for example" , "carrot" .)