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RAND:
Adolescents who use alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana while alone are more likely to have health and behavioral problems as young adults than their peers who consume the substances only in social settings, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today.
Solitary alcohol, cigarette and marijuana users are less likely to graduate from college, more likely to have substance use problems as young adults, and tend to report poorer physical health by age 23 than their peers who were social substance users, according to the study by the nonprofit research organization.
"While substance use is a problem in itself, these findings suggest that risk among solitary users is especially high," said Joan Tucker, a RAND psychologist and lead author of the study.
The RAND Health study, published in the December edition of the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, is the first to study adolescent solitary substance users and track their functioning over time.
The results come from a study of about 6,000 adolescents from California and Oregon enrolled in a program to evaluate Project ALERT, a drug use prevention program developed by RAND for middle school children.
Posted on December 7, 2006 07:27 PM
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