User Careers: Implications for Preventing Drug Misuse (From Alcohol and Drugs: Research and Policy, P 142-154, 1990, Martin Plant, Cees Goos, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-129672)

• NCJ Number: 129685
• Author(s): W Weiss
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: University of Edinburgh Press
• Publication Type: Literature Review
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This selective overview of the literature on changing lifetime patterns of drug abuse focuses on the factors that lead to starting and stopping drug use and abuse and the implications for prevention and research.

Abstract

The research has gathered data using epidemiological approaches, experimental studies, and interviews with former addicts. The results show that initiation into the use of legal substances such as alcohol, nicotine, and prescription drugs takes place early in life for most people in industrial societies. Society is relatively tolerant of deviant behavior by the young, and juvenile drug abuse is often a collective reaction to adverse and restrictive life conditions and occurs in the context of a group subculture. In contrast, adults' drug abuse is an individual and often hidden coping strategy. In addition, stopping drug abuse may involve different rewards for youth and adults. The findings indicate the need to provide alternative rewarding activities and social setting and to help people vary daily routines and improve their subjective sense of control over life. Further research should include periodic data collection from specific population groups and longitudinal studies of developmental patterns of drug abuse and its associated problems. 22 references