Deviant drug use in adolescence: A review of psychosocial correlates.

Research concerning the sociocultural and personality correlates of deviant adolescent use of alcohol, psychedelic drugs, and narcotics was reviewed. A number of consistently replicated findings regarding both personality and sociocultural correlates of adolescent use were found. At the same time, lack of comprehensive, systematic and theory-bound research, gross lack of methodo-logical rigor, and a lack of coordination of effort and integration of findings among the various areas of drug use research were noted. General requirements for the design of future research were also discussed. Deviant adolescent drug use has come to occupy center stage among the long list of contemporary problems concerning Americas youth. Given the current drive for interven-tion into this widespread and seemingly in-creasing deviant use of drugs (including alcohol) by todays youth, the need for psychosocial explanation of adolescent drug use is of pressing practical concern. Compre-hensive, cogent identification of the socio-cultural and personality determinants of various forms of youthful drug use is funda-mental to the development and administration of primary prevention and treatment efforts in this area. Accordingly, it is the authors intention to review critically the literature concerning the sociocultural and personality correlates of deviant adolescent drug use in an attempt to assess the level of psychosocial description and explanation which is presently available. This paper considers deviant adolescent drug use to be defined as any nonmedical use of consciousness-altering drugs by adoles-