Substance Use and Abuse Among Children and Teenagers
Michael D. Newcomb
University of Southern California
Peter M. Bentler
University of California, Los Angeles
ABSTRACT
During the past several years, there has been a renewed national concern about drug abuse, culminating in the current "war on drugs." In this review, we emphasize that even though child or teenage drug use is an individual behavior, it is embedded in a sociocultural context that strongly determines its character and manifestations. Our focus is on psychoactive substances both licit (cigarettes and alcohol) and illicit (e.g., cannabis and cocaine). We feel that it is critical to draw a distinction between use and abuse of drugs and to do so from a multidimensional perspective that includes aspects of the stimulus (drug), organism (individual), response, and consequences. Our selective review of substance use and abuse among children and adolescents covers epidemiology (patterns and extent of drug use),......
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Approximate Word Count: 6689
Approximate Pages: 26 (260 words per double-spaced page) |