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American youth consumption of licit and illicit substances
Author(s) -
Lee Yoon G.,
AbdelGhany Mohamed
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2004.00405.x
Subject(s) - cocaine use , monitoring the future , environmental health , psychology , cigarette smoking , demography , marijuana smoking , metropolitan area , youth risk behavior survey , substance use , medicine , suicide prevention , clinical psychology , poison control , psychiatry , substance abuse , sociology , pathology , polysubstance dependence
Using a representative sample of the 2001 National School‐based Youth Risk Behavior Survey, this study investigated the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between the use of licit and illicit substances by American youth between the ages 12 and 18. The results indicated a strong contemporaneous relationship between smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and using cocaine. The results supported the gateway hypothesis indicating that prior smoking of cigarettes is significantly associated with the probability of current marijuana and cocaine use, as prior drinking of alcohol is significantly associated with the probability of current marijuana and cocaine use. The results also showed that males had a higher probability of using cocaine than females, whereas black students had a higher probability of smoking marijuana and using cocaine than white students. Age and race were associated with marijuana and cocaine use, but cocaine use was further linked with the factors of gender, region, and metropolitan area. These findings could have implications for public policies regarding prevention.