Introduction -- Preparation for reintegration -- The reintegration process -- Living arrangements : the impact of where and with whom you live -- Training and employm ent : preparing for self support -- Family relationships : how family bonds can support or interfere with success -- Friends and frenemies : how peers can help or hinder success -- Overcoming substance abuse and dependency : a key to success -- Mental health challenges : stacking the odds against success -- Social context : neighborhood and community influences -- Programs and policies -- A look back and a look forward
We critically review recent studies to examine the measurement schemes and empirical models used to examine adolescent drug use, with a particular eye toward determining whether differences between the prevalence and frequency of use have been addressed. Several theoretical models suggest that there are differences but we find relatively few studies that have considered prevalence versus frequency, even though selection effects that dictate these processes affect conclusions about predictors of drug use. Using data from the 2004 U.S. National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), (n=16,235), we provide an empirical example of why distinguishing prevalence and frequency of use is important. In particular, gender, age, and parent-child arguments are associated with the prevalence, but are not associated with the frequency of drug use. The associations between grades, religiousness, positive parental relations and drug use are overestimated substantially absent controls for the selection process inherent in the shift from any use to frequency of use. We therefore contend that adolescent drug use studies require greater attention to this selection process.
In this paper we examined the relationship between religiosity, peer drug use, and adolescent drug use among 4,983 Utah adolescents and the 13,534 respondents from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Adolescents who were religious were less likely to smoke, drink heavily, and use marijuana than adolescents who were not religious. Adolescents in highly religious schools were less likely to smoke than adolescents in schools low on religiosity. Individual religiosity tended to lessen the influence of peer drug use on respondent drug use for cigarettes, heavy drinking, and marijuana use but not for the use of other illicit drugs. The associations between individual religiosity and the four types of drug use were not affected by the level of school religiosity. The findings were consistent across the two different samples and three types of drugs: cigarettes, heavy drinking, and marijuana. Social learning and social control theories were used to explain these findings.
The purpose of this article is to review current empirical research on the effectiveness of drug treatment programs, particularly those for prisoners, parolees, and probationers. The authors reviewed empirical research published after the year 2000 that they classified as Level 3 or higher on the Maryland Scale. Participants in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), therapeutic communities, and drug courts had lower rates of drug use and crime than comparable individuals who did not receive treatment. Several different types of pharmacological treatments were associated with a reduced frequency of drug use. Those who received contingency management tended to use drugs less frequently, particularly if they also received cognitive-behavioral therapy. Finally, researchers reported that drug use and crime were lower among individuals whose treatment was followed by an aftercare program. Effective treatment programs tend to (a) focus on high-risk offenders, (b) provide strong inducements to receive treatment, (c) include several different types of interventions simultaneously, (d) provide intensive treatment, and (e) include an aftercare component.
The role of peers in adolescent drug use is analyzed by integrating differential association and situational group pressure notions with propositions derived from social bond theory. The resultant causal model is tested for self‐reported use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, amphetamines, and depressants. The model explains 49% of the variation in combined drug use among 768 adolescents. The variables from social learning traditions have the strongest effects in the model, but associations with drug‐using parents or with prodrug definitions received from parents or friends have far less impact on drug use than do associations with drug‐using friends per se. It is argued that differential association with situational pressure to join others in drug use may be more relevant to adolescent drug use than are social bonds or differential association with a ratio of prodrug to antidrug definitions.
