Sources of Non-Medicinal Drug Use: A Test of the Drug-Oriented Society Explanation

Abstract

Societal practices and beliefs regarding the medicinal use of drugs recently have been widely cited as a source o] non-medicinal drug use. We submit this drug-oriented society explanation of non-medicinal drug use to a test by surveying a sample of 500 university students. The data for each respondent include favorableness of attitudes toward medicine, amount of parental use of medicine, and amount of self use of medicinal and non-medicinal drugs during a two-week test period. Analysis showed parental use of medicine to have a small association with respondents' non-medicinal drug use. Otherwise, contrary to what the explanation would predict, no important links exist among these variables. This independence, along with marked differences in the usage patterns of the various types of drugs included in the study, suggests that rather clear societal distinctions exist in practices and beliefs regarding medicinal and non-medicinal drug use.