Adolescent marijuana use and school attendance

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Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between adolescent marijuana use and school attendance. Data were pooled from the 1997 and 1998 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse to form a sample of 15 168 adolescents, aged 12–18 years, who had not yet complete high school. The analysis determined the role of marijuana use in adolescent school dropout and, conditional on being enrolled, estimated the number of days truant. The potential endogeneity of marijuana use was tested in all specifications. The results indicate that any marijuana use was positively associated with school dropout and truancy in all models. However, when chronic marijuana use (weekly or more frequent) was distinguished from non-chronic marijuana use (less frequent than weekly), chronic marijuana use was found to be the dominant factor in these relationships. The results have important implications for educators, substance abuse treatment providers, and policymakers.

Section snippets

Introduction and background

Despite small recent declines, the current prevalence of marijuana use among adolescents in the United States is still nearly twice its 1990 level (Office of Applied Studies [OAS], 2000a). Marijuana has been associated with a wide range of negative consequences (Dennis, Babor, Roebuck & Donaldson, 2002; Dennis, Dwaud-Noursi, Muck & McDermeit, 2002; OAS, 2000a). For example, marijuana was the most likely substance detected in adolescent arrests overall (50%) and among those who tested positive

Models and methods

To explore the hypothesis that marijuana-using adolescents were more likely to be school dropouts and truant more often, the following implicit functional form was assumed:SA=f(DU,I,F)where SA is a measure of school attendance (either a dichotomous measure of school dropout or a count measure of truancy), DU includes a vector of drug use measures, I represents a vector of characteristics of the individual, and F is a vector of family, geographic, and socio-economic factors.

Data

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (SAMHSA, 1999, SAMHSA, 2000) was selected for its comprehensive data on illicit drug use, its oversampling of adolescents, and its nationally representative design. To increase predictive power, data were pooled from the 1997 and 1998 NHSDAs, the 17th and 18th surveys in a series that began in 1971.3

Results

Table 2 presents the estimated coefficients from the four univariate probit models described earlier. The explanatory variables of primary importance for this paper were the substance use measures. In model 1, any marijuana use was positive and significantly related to school dropout. Specifically, the marginal effect for marijuana use on the probability of being a school dropout was 0.0093. This suggests that marijuana users have about a one percentage point higher probability of being a

Discussion

A general conclusion from this research is that all marijuana users are more likely to be school dropouts and, conditional on being enrolled in school, skip more school days relative to non-marijuana users. This result is consistent with findings from prior studies that have investigated marijuana use, school dropout, and educational attainment. Unlike earlier studies, however, the present paper also explored the relationships between frequency of marijuana use, school dropout, and truancy. In

Acknowledgements

Financial assistance for this study was provided by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) through the Cannabis Youth Treatment Cooperative Agreement (Grant Nos. TI11317, TI11320, TI11321, TI11323, TI11324, and contract No. 270-97-7011), and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant Nos. R01 DA13968, R01 DA13298, and R01 DA11506). The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not reflect official positions of the US Government, AdvancePCS, Medical University of South

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