The Poly-Drug User: Examining Associations between Drugs Used by Adolescents

ABSTRACT

Based on data from the 2014 Communities that Care Youth Survey, the authors examine the associations between drug use frequencies among 11 drugs. This research represents a step in determining what leads to the use of dangerous drugs like heroin, other opioids, and other not so dangerous substances. Findings indicate the highest association is between marijuana and alcohol use. Most drugs show at least a low to medium association with all other drugs. Findings indicate the difficulty in making gateway assumptions and that poly-drug use determined by peer associations is a better explanation.

Notes

¹ There are always cases of heroin addicts temporarily not being able to get heroin in which case they may will resort to other opioids.

² Opioid antagonists relieve the pains of withdrawal but block the euphoric effect of heroin and other opioids. Indeed, opioid antagonists generally have a 24-hour half-life so that there are no effects of heroin if used. The theory is that the addict will crave heroin at first but will learn to live without the effects. However, methadone blocks the entire receptor site (full antagonist) while Suboxone only blocks part of the receptor site (partial antagonist).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raymond W. Biggar

RAYMOND W. BIGGAR, JR., Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He has eight years of experience working in evaluative research and project management in the areas of school climate, mental health, and juvenile justice. He is also an adjunct Associate Professor in the department of counselor education.

Craig J. Forsyth

CRAIG J. FORSYTH is Professor of Sociology, a Picard Scholar, and holds the Jack and Gladys Theall/BORSF Professorship in Liberal Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is the author of over 250 journal articles and book chapters. He is the author of The American Merchant Seaman: Struggle and Stigma (Taylor & Francis, 1989); coauthor (with Anthony Margavio) of Caught in the Net: The Conflict Between Shrimpers and Conservationists (Texas A&M Press, 1996); and coauthor (with Heith Copes) of the Encyclopedia of Social Deviance (Sage, 2014). His principal research interests are in the areas of deviance, crime, and delinquency. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Louisiana State University in 1983. He received both his B.A. (1977) and M.A. (1979) at the University of New Orleans.

Jing Chen

JING CHEN is a Research Associate working at the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her research interests include data mining and visualization.

Karen Burstein

KAREN BURSTEIN is the Director of the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette as well as Loyd J. Rockhold Eminent Chair and Professor of Early Childhood at UL Lafayette. Burstein earned a Ph.D. in Special Education and Measurement from Arizona State University, She has served as principal investigator on over 20 federally funded research projects and evaluated numerous others. Her current research interests include language acquisition in young under-resourced children, enriched ebooks as supplemental tools for reading comprehension, and computational logic as a tool for heuristic decision making.