Age and Drug Use by Rural and Urban Adolescents

Abstract

This is a survey undertaken to assess the importance of age in determining the use of both conventional (licit) and deviant (illicit) drugs among junior and high school students in the Brazos Valley, Texas, in 1976. In addition the age-drug use relationships were examined in terms of the age, sex, and residence of the respondents. The results show that the use of conventional drugs (e.g., tobacco and alcohol) increases with age, but no such relationship obtains for deviant drugs. Curvilinear relationships are evidenced in the deviant drug-age relationships. Patterns of drug use appear to be characteristic by specific sex, racial, and residential subgroups. Black females, especially those from rural areas use deviant drugs such as hallucinogens, heroin, cocaine, and solvents at rates which equal or exceed the rates of other subgroups, but are 30 per cent less likely to use beer than urban white females.