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Teenage highs and
lows: scientists uncover risk factors for marijuana use
What risk factors influence teenagers to start experimenting with
marijuana or to move from experimental to regular use?
Involvement with other substances (alcohol and cigarettes), delinquency
and school problems have been established as the three most important
risk factors in identifying teenagers at risk of continued involvement
with marijuana by a
Cardiff
University
scientist, in collaboration with a colleague in the
USA
.
The study, Risk Factors Predicting Changes in Marijuana Involvement, led
by Dr Marianne van den Bree, Department of Psychological Medicine,
School
of
Medicine
and Dr Wallace Pickworth, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the
USA
assessed over 13,700 school students at high schools throughout the
USA
(aged 11-21 years). The students were participating in the
National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the
USA
twice (in 1995 and in 1996) over a one year period.
Over half of the students in the study who indicated use of marijuana in
1995 were still using it one year later. Twenty-one well-established
risk factors of adolescent substance use/abuse, including personality,
family variables and religion, were used to predict five stages of
marijuana involvement: (1) initiation of experimental use, (2)
initiation of regular use, (3) progression to regular use, (4) failure
to discontinue experimental use, and (5) failure to discontinue regular
use.
Dr van den Bree said: "We found assessment of use of other
substances and peer substance use, school, and delinquency factors to be
key to identifying individuals at high risk for continued involvement
with marijuana. The combined presence of these three risk factors
greatly increased risk of experimental (by 20 times) and regular
marijuana use (by 87 times) over the next year. Prevention and
intervention efforts should focus on these areas of risk."
The study findings have been published in Archives of General
Psychiatry, March 2005. A copy of the article can be found at
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/
(17/3/05)
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