Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ArticlesSequences of Substance Use Among American Indian Adolescents
Section snippets
METHOD
Data for this study were collected in a school-based survey of the use of alcohol and other substances as well as potential risk and protective factors for such use among AI high school students (Mitchell et al., 1999, Novins and Mitchell, 1998). Data consisted of paper-and-pencil questionnaire responses from students in grades 9 through 12 at seven predominantly AI high schools in four rural AI communities west of the Mississippi River. In working with AI communities, protection of the
Prevalence and Age of First Use
The lifetime prevalence of use and mean age of first use for each of the five classes of substances are summarized in Table 1. Alcohol had the highest prevalence of use (73.5%); cocaine, the lowest (10.3%). Inhalants had the lowest mean age of first use (12.6 years old), followed by marijuana (13.0 years old), and then alcohol (13.3 years old). The mean age of first use of any class of substance was 12.4 years old, lower than the mean age of first use for any of the individual classes of
DISCUSSION
These results call into question the applicability of Stage Theory, at least in its current form, to the progression of use of different substance classes among AI adolescents. For example, Stage Theory suggests that among the five classes of substances studied here, alcohol should be the first substance used. However, among users of both alcohol and marijuana, 34.9% reported using alcohol prior to marijuana and 35.1% reported using marijuana prior to alcohol. The findings were similar among AI
REFERENCES (30)
- et al.
Development of substance use and psychiatric comorbidity in an epidemiologic study of white and American Indian young adolescents the Great Smoky Mountains Study
Drug Alcohol Depend
(1997) - et al.
Marijuana use among American Indian adolescents: a growth curve analysis from ages 14 through 20
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1999) - et al.
Adolescent substance abuse: a review of the past 10 years
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1998) Familial antecedents of adolescent drug use: a developmental perspective
Comparison of drug use rates for reservation Indian, non-reservation Indian and Anglo youth
Am Indian Alsk Native Ment Health Res
(1992)Volatile solvent abuse: trends and patterns
Trends in drug use among American Indian students and dropouts, 1975 to 1994
Am J Public Health
(1996)The Lakota Ritual of the Sweat Lodge: History and Contemporary Practice
(1998)- et al.
Parental influences on substance use: gender differences and stage theory
J Drug Educ
(1987)
The shifting importance of alcohol and marijuana as gateway substances among serious drug abusers
J Stud Alcohol
Ethnic differences in adolescent substance initiation sequences
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med
Applied Logistic Regression
The Southeastern Indians
Sequence and stages in patterns of adolescent drug use
Arch Gen Psychiatry
Cited by (46)
Patterns of substance use initiation among Indigenous adolescents
2015, Addictive BehaviorsCitation Excerpt :Studies on patterns of substance abuse initiation among Indigenous adolescents have shown little support for the traditional gateway hypothesis. Using retrospective data, Novins et al. (2001) found that among 1562 American Indian high school students from four rural communities in the West, those who had used three or more substances had a pattern of substance use that was inconsistent with gateway theories of initiation. In a subsequent longitudinal study, Novins and Barón (2004) reported that progression patterns varied by American Indian community and by season of the year.
Marijuana use development over the course of adolescence among North American Indigenous youth
2012, Social Science ResearchCitation Excerpt :Though marijuana use is not related to some of the social consequences that alcohol use precipitates (e.g., violence; Greenfeld, 1998), heavy marijuana users exhibit decreased cognitive performance even after periods of abstinence (Bolla et al., 2005), which may indicate neuromaturational deficits for those who begin using it early in life (Medina et al., 2007). Moreover, marijuana use can have lifelong consequences by influencing academic performance, antisocial behaviors, and other drug use (Novins and Baron, 2004; Novins et al., 2001; Novins and Mitchell, 1998). Given the risks associated with early marijuana use, understanding the developmental course of its use over adolescence is the principal focus of this investigation.
Childhood characteristics associated with stage of substance use of American Indians: Family background, traumatic experiences, and childhood behaviors
2007, Addictive BehaviorsCitation Excerpt :Using reports of lifetime consumption of a substance six times or more during any one year for non-medical purposes, respondent stage of substance use was operationalized using four mutually exclusive, hierarchical stages: Stage 0, lifetime abstinence; Stage 1A, alcohol use only; Stage 1B, marijuana and/or inhalant use with or without alcohol use; and Stage 2, other illicit drug use with or without the use of the previously listed substances. This stage classification was based on previous work by Novins et al. (2001) and Novins and Barün (2004) concerning the sequence of substance use among AI adolescents and is a modification of Kandel's (1975) sequence. Potential correlates of stage of substance use included measures of family background, traumatic events, and antisocial and substance use behaviors (see Table 2 for full listing of these measures).
Culture, context, and sexual risk among Northern Plains American Indian Youth
2007, Social Science and MedicineIs inhalant use a risk factor for heroin and injection drug use among adolescents in the United States?
2007, Addictive BehaviorsCitation Excerpt :Approximately 9% of youth initiated inhalant use prior to age 14; inhalant users were twice as likely as inhalant nonusers to use opiates by young adulthood (Storr et al., 2005). Like inhalant use (Novins, Beals, & Mitchell, 2001), marijuana use has been conceptualized as a gateway to other drug involvement. Researchers have observed a general developmental sequence of drug use, from initial use of alcohol and/or cigarettes to marijuana use, which is followed by the use of other drugs (Donnermeyer, 1993; Ellickson, Hays, & Bell, 1992; Kandel, Yamaguchi, & Chen, 1992; Yamaguchi & Kandel, 1984).
Modulation of drug use in southern farming communities: Social origins of poly-use
2009, Human Organization
This research was supported in part by NIDA grant R01-DA10039 (Dr. Mitchell), NIAAA grant R01-AA08474 (Drs. Manson and Beals), NIMH grant R01-MH42473 (Dr. Manson), and NIMH grant K20-MH01253 (Dr. Novins). The authors gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Drs. Mark Plunkett, Spero Manson, and Anna Barón.
This paper was presented in part at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the College on the Problems of Drug Dependence.