NCJ Number
225537
Journal
Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 38 Issue: 3 Dated: Summer 2008 Pages: 689-716
Date Published
2008
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This paper uses a nationally representative, longitudinal dataset of adolescents to examine the influence of traditional measures of social control, religious social control, and a new measure of religious salience on the probability of adolescents’ first marijuana use.
Abstract
The net effect of religious salience is more than twice that of any other individual predictor. Conversely, traditional measures of social control such as parental monitoring became nonsignificant in the multivariate models. This suggests that it is not one of the mechanisms through which religious involvement directly influences marijuana initiation. Another important effect that emerged in the analysis was that of religious networks. The results suggest that it is not the number of adults or just the deviance of peers but rather the source of those monitors and friends that matters. Much research on adolescent deviance has supported a theory of social control, asserting that the lack of ties to institutions, such as school and parents increases an adolescent’s likelihood of using illicit substance. Researchers in this tradition often posit religion as one among many sources of norm enforcement. This study examined the impact of different dimensions of religious life on the likelihood of first time marijuana use among United States adolescents. Using a longitudinal, nationally-representative dataset (National Study of Youth and Religion), this study examined standard measures of general social control, religious social control, and a new measure of religious salience with respect to adolescents’ initiation of marijuana use. Also, the significant impact of several theoretically proposed interaction terms between religious involvement, networks, and salience were tested. Tables, figures, appendix, notes, and references