NCJ Number
213628
Date Published
February 2004
Length
57 pages
Annotation
This study examined the movement of adolescents and young adults into and out of drug use and identified factors that predicted heavy drug use.
Abstract
Overall, 42 percent of the study sample (12,686 youth ages 14-21 followed for 19 years) reported marijuana use; 19 percent reported cocaine use; and 3 percent reported crack use (data on crack were collected only between 1992 and 1998). Most of the persons using any drug in a given round of data collection never used the drug again or used the drug for one additional round. Only 3.9 percent used marijuana in four rounds of data collection, and 0.6 percent used cocaine in four rounds; crack was used in two rounds by 0.6 percent. Almost half of marijuana users who used in one index round used it in the next round. Only 1 of 16 non-marijuana users in one index period used marijuana in the subsequent period. Approximately one-fourth of cocaine users who used in one index round used it in the subsequent period. Regarding the prediction of heavy drug use, adolescents and young adults who smoked marijuana more than 50 times at the first contact were 6 times more likely to become heavy cocaine users than those who did not smoke marijuana. This supports the belief that preventing adolescents and young adults from using substantial amounts of marijuana may produce a significant decrease in the number of future heavy cocaine users. Young male users were almost twice as likely as young female drug users to become heavy drug users. Other factors related to heavy drug use were suspensions from school, a significant amount of illegal income, and lack of involvement in religious services. The data source was the U.S. Department of Labor's National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which began collecting data in 1979. Extensive tables and figures, and an appended list of variable codes