Drug Use and Mental Health Among a Representative National Sample of Young Adults

Abstract

This study is an examination of patterns of drug use, and the relationship of drug use to mental health among a representative sample of young (18 to 29 years of age) adults in the United States. The major findings may be summarized as follows: (1) in general, users of any one drug have a higher probability of using each of the other drugs than do non-users of that drug, (2) in general, use of drugs is strongly related to the experience of psychiatric symptoms, but is only weakly related to low positive affect, (3) the more kinds of drugs which are used, the worse the mental health of the respondent, and the analyses presented here suggest that the relationships are additive, rather than being interactive. We speculate that drug use may be a coping strategy for persons who experience various forms of psychological distress, and who use drugs in an attempt to improve their mental health. The rise in drug use among young Americans which began in the mid1960s has prompted a new interest in the effect of drugs on behavior and on physical and psychological health. Concern about the consequences of the widespread use of various illegal drugs has generated a great deal of research of widely varying quality and form. Simple demographic surveys of drug use patterns range from those drawn from an individual high school or college to national surveys such as the Gallup Opinion Poll. Most studies have sought to identify the factors that lead to drug use among teenagers and young adults-demographic characteristics, personality variables, and socialization experiences. Particular attention is paid to peer groups and parental behavior. (For reviews of these studies see Blumberg; Gorsuch and Butler; and especially Kandel). In contrast to the considerable *This research was supported by NSF Grant 73-05455A01. We would like to thank Lisa Heinrich, Michael Hughes, and Robert Crutchfield for their comments. C 1979, University of North Carolina Press. 0037-7732/79/020572-90$01.90