Original articleAre Drug Experimenters Better Adjusted Than Abstainers and Users?: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Marijuana Use
Section snippets
Participants
Participants in the original baseline sample were 6527 students recruited from 30 California and Oregon schools at grade 7 (1985), with follow-up assessments conducted in grades 8, 9, 10, and 12, and at ages 23 and 29 (2001). These adolescents participated in the RAND Adolescent Panel Study, conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the Project ALERT drug use prevention program for middle school children [23]. The schools were chosen to represent a wide range of community types, socioeconomic
Comparisons of Abstainers, Experimenters, and Frequent Users at Grade 12
Table 1 shows comparisons of the three substance use groups at grade 12. Socially, abstainers looked different from, but not specifically worse off than, substance-using youth. Abstainers tended to be less socially active in certain respects than nonabstainers, going to parties/dances less often than experimenters and frequent users, as well as dating less often than experimenters. However, it was not the case that abstainers refrained from these activities entirely, in that 63% had attended a
Discussion
Given that experimentation with substance use is normative during adolescence, are teens who choose to abstain from experimentation relatively maladjusted? Results from this study provide little support for this idea. Consistent with previous research indicating that abstainers are more introverted than substance users [15], [28], abstainers in this study appeared to be somewhat less socially engaged with their peers at grade 12. However, they did not report being more lonely, having less
Acknowledgment
The research reported in this article was funded by Grant R01DA13515 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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