NCJ Number
195558
Journal
Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2002 Pages: 169-185
Date Published
May 2002
Length
17 pages
Annotation
This article explores adolescents’ impressions of cigarette smoking, drinking alcohol, and taking a range of illegal drugs.
Abstract
Intervention groups need to have a clear awareness of the personal views already held by young people with respect to drugs and alcohol in order to change attitudes as well as behavior. The participants for this study were drawn from three Northamptonshire schools selected to provide students from a range of social backgrounds. Two were small secondary schools that drew students from both urban and rural areas, and one was an urban middle school. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on their knowledge and experience of alcohol, cigarettes, illegal substances, family background, and a number of demographic and psychological variables. Data were collected using a word association technique in order to allow participants to generate their own images regarding the various substances. The participants were asked to report their associations for each of the following behaviors: drinking beer, lager or cider; drinking alcopops; smoking cigarettes; smoking cannabis; sniffing glue; and taking ecstasy. Results showed that education initiatives regarding the use of cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol should not approach even the youngest adolescents as “empty vessels” to be filled with knowledge, attitudes, and opinions of the providers of health education. The participants were more likely to produce negative associations when given the names of a range of psychoactive substances despite having reported high levels of contact with several of the substances. Overall, 63 percent of the images generated by the participants were classified as negative while only 8 percent were classified as positive. It appeared that messages regarding specific health consequences in relation to cigarette use had been assimilated in a way that was not the case for the other substances examined, including alcohol. Although the participants showed some awareness of negative health associations with the use of alcohol, drugs, and glue, these tended to be highly general in nature. Besides being seen more positively, there seemed to be an assumption that alcopops would be less potent than beer. Differences in imagery between glue, cannabis, ecstasy, and heroin were less marked. 5 tables, 40 references