Survival Orientation and the Drug Use Experiences of a Sample of Inner City Junior High School Youths

Abstract

This paper focuses on the association between a sample of inner city junior high school youths' survival orientation and their (1) environmental relationships and (2) drug use context and substance use experiences. A survival orientation index was developed based on the youths' feelings about the need to join a gang, the chances of making a “success” in life, the difficulty of getting oneself together growing up in their neighborhoods, and how hard it was to avoid getting into trouble in their neighborhoods. The findings indicate that the more the youths' feel neighborhood pressures to survive the: (1) more esteemed people who use drugs and are involved with gangs are perceived to be; (2) more often they claim to engage in street culture, gang-related spare time activities; (3) less frequently they use print media and engage in stay at home activities; (4) more frequently they indicate their friends use “hard” drugs; (5) more often they claim to being drunk or very, very high on alcohol; and (6) more often they claim to having trouble with family or friends as a result of alcohol or other drug use. In highlighting the influence of social stresses in the youth's neighborhoods on their drug-taking experiences, the findings point to the importance of developing socioculturally informed prevention thrusts to reduce the youths' drug abuse risk and to teach them how to counteract negative neighborhood pressures.