Chapter 1

Risk factors associated with marijuana use

1) Having friends who use it. 2) Engaging in frequent fighting, stealing, or other antisocial activities 3) Perceiving that it is prevalent at school 4) Knowing adults who use it. 5) Having positive attitude toward marijuana use.

Protective factors associated with marijuana use

1) Perceiving that there are strong sanctions against substance use at school. 2) Having parents as source of support. 3) Being committed to school. 4) Believing that religion is important 5) Participating in 2 or more extracurriculars

What percent of drinkers have significant problems such as missing work due to a hangover or having multiple arrests for driving under the influence?

10%

What percentage of African, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian people use marijuana?

17% 11% 27% 10%

Marijuana use trends

1975 (just under 30%) increases 1978 (37%) decreases 1992 (12%) increases 1997 (24%) decreases 2008 (just under 20%)

College student daily alcohol use

3.6%

College marijuana daily use

4.4%

Correlate

variable that is statistically related to some other variable, such as drug use

College marijuana use

47%

What percentage of white people use marijuana?

47%

What percentage of African, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian people use alcohol?

50% 51% 58% 51%

What percentage of white people use alcohol?

68%

What percentage of American adolescents report that religion plays an important part in their lives?

75%

College student alcohol use

82% (18% abstinent) 2/3 report drinking within the month prior the survey

Drug dependence - state in which individual uses drug so frequently and consistently that it appears that it would be difficult for the person to get along without using the drug.

If a great deal of the individual's time and effort is devoted to getting and using the drug, if the person often winds up taking more of the substance than he or she intended, and if the person has tried several times without success to cut down or control the use, then the person meets the criteria for dependence.

Drug - any substance, natural or artificial, other than food, that by its chemical nature alters structure or function in the living organism.

Illicit drug - a drug that is unlawful to possess or use. Many of these drugs are available by prescription, but when the are manufactured or sold illegally they are illicit.

The risk factor "impulsivity" can be correlated with rates of substance use in the general population.

Impulsivity relates to a person's tendency to act quickly and without consideration of the longer-term consequences.

What drugs are so reinforcing that this process occurs relatively rapidly in a large percentage of those who use them.

Intravenous heroin and cocaine. For alcohol, the process seems to be slower.

What are methods to control drug use?

Legal controls and education

Higher rates of substance use are found in groups of people diagnosed with personality disorders, such as conduct disorder or antisocial personality disorder.

Personality factors are correlated with drug use; they play a small role in whether someone decides to try alcohol or marijuana, but a larger role in whether that use develops into a serious problem. Genetic factors probably a small role in whether someone tries alcohol or marijuana, but a larger role in whether that use develops into a serious problem.

True or false: there is link between marijuana smoking and poor academic performance.

True Association between low academic performance and cigarette smoking was even stronger than association between low academic performance and marijuana smoking. Most people conclude that it's the kids who are getting low grades anyway who are more likely to be smokers.

True or false: males are more likely to drink alcohol, use tobacco, smoke marijuana, and use cocaine than are females.

True Whites are more likely to drink alcohol, use tobacco, or use cocaine than are African Americans, and whites are slightly more likely to use marijuana as well. If we restricted ourselves to looking at the smaller group of people who can be classified as substance abusers, and if we compared urban neighborhoods with high minority populations to suburban white neighborhoods, we would find higher rates of drug abuse in the urban ghetto. Native Americans have somewhat higher rates of tobacco and marijuana use.

Relative to marijuana, many more people are current users of alcohol, and many fewer use cocaine

We can determine which kinds of substances are most widely used, are much more widely used than other substances, and we can follow some fairly significant overall trends

Young adults with college degrees are much more likely to drink alcohol and much less likely to use tobacco.

Those with more education are also somewhat less likely to use marijuana or cocaine.

Abuse - use of a substance in a manner, amounts, or situations such that the drug use causes problems or greatly increases the chances of problems occurring.

Addiction - controversial and complex term that has different meanings for different people.

Antecedents - characteristics that predict later initiation of drug use.

Aggressiveness, conduct problems, poor academic performance, attachment to bad company, and parent and community norms more supportive of drug use; because these factors were measured before the increase in substance use, we are more likely to conclude that they may be causing substance use.

The development and marketing of legal pharmaceuticals has changed a lot in the past 100 years because of the introduction of vaccines to eliminate smallpox, polio, and other communicable diseases.

Another significant development in the past 100 years has been government efforts to limit access to certain kinds of drugs that are deemed too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence to allow them to be used in an unregulated fashion.

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug.

Availability of marijuana has not changed over the past years. Marijuana use increases when perceived risk decreases and decreases when perceived risk increases. Best way to achieve low rates of marijuana use is by convincing students that it is risky to use marijuana. Cause and effect relationship has not been proven though. Perceived risk of marijuana is slightly decreasing.

More likely is that early alcohol use and cigarette smoking are common indicators of the general deviance-prone pattern of behavior that also includes an increased likelihood of smoking marijuana or trying cocaine.

Because beer and cigarettes are more widely available to a deviance-prone young person than marijuana or cocaine, it is logical that beer and cigarettes would most often be tried first.

Heroin is good analgesic.

Cocaine is good anesthetic

Those adolescents who reported that their parents frequently monitored their behavior (checking homework, limiting TV watching, and requiring chores, for example) were actually a little more likely to report using marijuana than adolescents who reported less parental monitoring.

Do not know which causes what - problem with correlational studies.

Deviant drug use - drug use that is not common within a social group and that is disapproved of by the majority, causing members of the group to take corrective action when it occurs.

Drug misuse - use of prescribed drugs in greater amounts than, or for purposes other than, those prescribed by a physician or dentist. For nonprescription drugs or chemicals, misuse might mean any use other than the use intended by manufacturer.

Psychoactive drug effects are powerfully influenced by the user's history and expectations.

Experienced users may react differently than new users, for example, showing less disruption in a driving simulator test after drinking alcohol (the same happens with marijuana). Experienced users may also report more of the positive effects of a drug, partly because of associations from their prior use.

From a longitudinal study, males who had shown a high "readiness to learn" in first grade were less likely to be cocaine users as adults. Males who were either "shy" or "aggressive" in first grade were more likely to be adult drug users compared to the students who had been considered neither shy nor aggressive 26 years earlier.

Females with poor academic performance in first grade had lower rates of cocaine use than females with higher first-grade scores.

Although societal, community, and family factors play an important role in determining whether an individual will first try a drug, with increasing use the individual's own experiences with the drug become increasingly important.

For those who become seriously dependent, the drug and its actions on that individual become central, and social influences, availability, cost and penalties play a less important role in the continuation of drug use.

What is the single most common type of illicit drug, and the vast majority of those users are what some have called recreational or social or casual users.

Marijuana smoking

Gateway - one of the first drugs used by a typical drug user

Most high school students started drug involvement with beer or wine. Second stage involved hard liquor, cigarettes, or both. Third stage was marijuana.

Although a user might be seeking only one effect, every psychoactive drug acts at multiple sites, both in the brain and on other organs.

Not only are a drug's effects often increased with higher drug concentrations, but additional effects tend to show up as wel

In another study conducted at Seattle, the order of use did not predict current levels or types of drug use in this population, leading the study's authors to conclude that knowing what substances people use first might not be very important in helping to prevent future escalation of drug use.

One possible interpretation of the gateway phenomenon is that young people are exposed to alcohol and tobacco and that these substances somehow make the person more likely to go on to use other drugs.

Many of the high school students in the nationwide surveys report that they take drugs "to see what it's like," or "to get high," or "because of boredom."

They are looking for a change, for something new and different in their lives.

Reinforcement - a procedure in which a behavioral event is followed by a consequent event such that the behavior is then more likely to be repeated. The behavior of taking a drug may be reinforced by the effect of the drug.

The behavior of taking a drug may be reinforced by the effect of the drug. Many of these drugs are capable of reinforcing the behavior that gets the drug into the system. Each time you take the drug you increase slightly the probability that you will take it again. There is tendency to increase frequency or amount of use.

Kids who live in rough neighborhoods, whose parents don't seem to care what they do, who have drug-using friends, who steal and get into fights, who aren't involved in religious activities, and who don't do well in school are the most likely to smoke marijuana.

The same study analyzed cigarette smoking and alcohol use, with overall similar results.

Risk factors are correlated with higher rates of drug use

protective factors are correlated with lower rates of drug use.