William J. McCuller

The associations of social self-control, personality disorders, and demographics with drug use among high-risk youth.

A 10-item self-report measure of social self-control was examined for its association with substance use, controlling for its associations with 12 personality disorder indices and 4 demographic variables among a sample of 1050 high-risk youth. Social self-control was found to be associated with 30-day cigarette smoking, alcohol use, marijuana use, and hard drug use, controlling for these other variables. The most consistent concurrent predictors of substance use were male gender, antisocial personality disorder, and social self-control. These results highlight the importance of social self-control as a unique concurrent predictor of substance use and suggest that social self-control skill training is relevant in substance abuse prevention programming.

Project Towards No Drug Abuse: two-year outcomes of a trial that compares health educator delivery to self-instruction.

OBJECTIVES This paper describes the 2-year follow-up of a 12-session version of an indicated drug abuse prevention program, Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND). Self-instruction programming often is used to help youth that are at high risk for dropout and drug abuse to complete their high school education. However, a health educator-led program is much more interactive. METHODS The effects of self-instruction versus health educator-led versions of this curriculum were examined. Eighteen schools were randomly assigned by block to one of three conditions--standard care (control), health educator-led classroom program, and self-instruction classroom program. Subjects were followed up 1 and 2 years later. Two-year results are reported here. RESULTS The self-instruction program produced no behavioral effects relative to the standard care control condition. The 2-year follow-up results indicated maintenance of program effects on cigarette smoking and hard drug use in the health educator-led version. CONCLUSIONS Project TND shows maintenance of effects on some drugs 2 years after program implementation, when most youth were young adults. More work is needed to learn how to maintain effects across substances. Continued exploration of modalities of implementation may be helpful.

Concurrent prediction of drug use among high-risk youth.

Correlates of drug use were examined in a continuation high school sample (n = 1.315), using canonical correlation analysis. Fourteen demographic, attitudes/belief, and psychosocial pressure/ anxiety-type variables were included as concurrent predictors. Eight drug-use-related measures were also placed into the analysis as outcome variables. Two factors were revealed. White ethnicity, not being Latino, all attitude/belief measures, and family conflict and depression showed relatively high loadings on the first predictor factor, and were associated with all drug-use measures. Latino ethnicity and being relatively unacculturated (i.e., tending to speak Spanish), most of the attitude/belief measures (but not sensation seeking or spirituality), and perceived peer approval to use drugs, trait anxiety, and depression showed relatively high loadings on the second predictor factor, and were associated with the hard-drug-use measures. These results suggest that there is a subgroup of unacculturated Latino youth who are anxious, who perceive they will achieve peer approval by using drugs, and who tend to use hard drugs. Indicated drug abuse prevention strategies may need to be tailored to this subgroup when developing and implementing programming.

Factors in Marijuana Cessation among High-Risk Youth

The rise in marijuana use among high school students has generated considerable concern. The apparent failure of current marijuana control efforts may be due in part to ignorance about why students use marijuana and what influences them to consider quitting. This article utilized both open-ended and multiple-choice surveys as well as health educator-led focus groups to assess issues related to marijuana use and cessation among a population of high-risk youth. A total of 842 students participated, assessed as two separate samples from eleven continuation high schools in southern California. Approximately 70 percent of the students are current marijuana users. Interpreting results across both samples, it is apparent that interest in quitting marijuana use among continuation high school students is high. Over half of the marijuana users surveyed have tried to quit and failed. Still, several social images associated with marijuana smokers are positive and subjects express a lack of confidence in the efficacy of marijuana cessation clinic programs. Subjects believe that either self-help or punitive methods are the most effective types of marijuana cessation activities. A reportedly high rate of failed quit attempts suggests that effective marijuana cessation programs are needed in this population. Future programs must address both reasons users resist change, including use of marijuana as a stress reliever, and the particular motivations that subjects report regarding why they desire to quit using marijuana, including legal, vocational, and health consequences.

Development and Immediate Impact of a Self-Instruction Curriculum for an Adolescent Indicated Drug Abuse Prevention Trial

This article describes the development and immediate impact of a self-instruction indicated drug abuse prevention program, Project Towards No Drug Abuse (TND). Self-instruction programming often is used to help youth that are at high risk for dropout and drug abuse to complete their high school education, and is a method of choice among educators at alternative high schools. This article describes the justification for the self-instruction program, keys to good programmed self-learning, and how a 12-session health educator delivered program was converted to a self-instruction format. In addition, the immediate impact of a 3-group experimental trial is presented. Health educator led, self-instruction, and standard care control conditions are compared on knowledge change, and the two program conditions are compared on process ratings. Self-instruction programming can be successfully adapted from a health educator-led format, though the lack of student group interaction in this modality may limit its receptivity among students.

Tracking Procedures for Locating High-Risk Youth

Few published works are available that provide a comprehensive description of tracking procedures. This article describes the data collection tracking protocol that was used in Project Towards No Drug Abuse (Project TND), to follow high-risk youth over a 5 1/2 year period. Youth were followed from 1994 through 2000. A total of 35% of these youth were assessed 5 1/2 years later. Collapsing across the last two waves, 46% of these youth were followed an average of 5 years later. These procedures may be helpful in tracking highly mobile youth.

I’m Mad and I’m Bad Links Between Self-Identification as a Gangster, Symptoms of Anger, and Alcohol Use Among Minority Juvenile Offenders

This preliminary study examined whether anger and identification with the ‘‘gang member’’ peer group are associated with heavy alcohol use. Participants were 91 (53.8% male) juvenile offenders in four juvenile probation camps in Southern California who completed a self-report survey. More than half (53.4%) indicated that they best fit in with the ‘‘gang member’’ peer group. In a multivariate model, identification with the ‘‘gang member’’ peer group was associated with heavy alcohol use during the past 30 days prior to their incarceration. Identification with peer groups other than gang members may prevent juvenile offenders from engaging in heavy alcohol use.