Developmental factors in adolescent drug users

Prevention of Drug and Alcohol Abuse

This paper describes data collected from two personality measures completed by clients as they entered a residential treatment program for chemically dependent adolescents. This information, in conjunction with relevant demographic data, profiles each resident entering treatment. These profiles were analyzed and subsequent data were reviewed with the intention of describing key factors that might help facilitate early intervention efforts. Several ideas are suggested for prevention and early intervention strategies.

Reasons for drug use: comparison of drug users and abusers

A paired sample of 48 subjects, matched in sex, marital status, residence, and socioeconomic status, was divided into two groups, drug users and drug abusers. Each subject was interviewed about his motivation for drug use. His responses were taped, transcribed, and coded. Analysis showed that drug users were more likely to use drugs for recreational purposes, while drug abusers used drugs to cope with an external locus of control, a low self-concept, feelings of disillusion, and personal stresses. Both groups used drugs to escape, seek personal identity, and rebel against authority. The discussion emphasized that drug users and abusers have different motivations for drug-taking and must be considered as two distinct groups.

Reentry: a study of the movement of young drug users toward mainstream society

In the middle 1960s hundreds of thousands of young people dramatically left American mainstream society to join the hippie movement. Almost ten years after the height of the hippie phenomenon, there has been little longitudinal investigation of the predictions by social scientists that these young people would be lost from future mainstream involvement. In the late 1960s, through a study of young drug users in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, my colleagues and I began to assess the degree of movement taken by hippie drug users toward mainstream society. This research focused on the differential outcome of three groups of young drug users, approximately two and a half years after they were initially studied.

Credibility of sources of information about drugs

Several samples of youthful drug users and non-users were asked to rate the credibility of a variety of sources of information about drugs. For both users and non-users these sources can be scaled along dimensions of authority, drug experience, and friendship. The profile of credibility of these sources differed markedly for users and non-users. There are clear implications of these findings for drug education and drug counseling.