The Childhood Personality of Frequent Users

The frequent users were compared with the experimenters on each of the CCQ items by means of separate t-tests. At age 11, frequent users were described (in comparison to experimenters) as visibly deviant from their peers, emotionally labile, inattentive and unable to concentrate, not involved in what they do, stubborn (preceding items significant at the .05 level), unhelpful and uncooperative, pushing and stretching limits, not eager to please, immobilized under stress, not curious and open to new experience, likely to give up easily, likely to withdraw under stress, not having high performance standards, suspicious and distrustful, and overreactive to minor frustrations (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

At age 7, the frequent users were described as not getting along well with other children, not showing concern for moral issues (e.g., reciprocity, fairness), having bodily symptoms from stress, tending to be indecisive and vacillating, not planful or likely to think ahead, not trustworthy or dependable, not able to admit to negative feelings, not self-reliant or confident (preceding items significant at the .05 level), preferring nonverbal methods of communication, not developing genuine and close relationships, not proud of their accomplishments, not vital or energetic or lively, not curious and open to new experience, not able to recoup after stress, afraid of being deprived, appearing to feel unworthy and "bad," not likely to identify with admired adults, inappropriate in emotive behavior, and easily victimized and scapegoated by other children (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

In short, the frequent users appear to be relatively maladjusted as children. As early as age 7, the picture that emerges is of a child unable to form good relationships, who is insecure, and who shows numerous signs of emotional distress. These data indicate that the relative social and psychological maladjustment of the frequent users predates adolescence, and predates initiation of drug use.

The Childhood Personality of Abstainers

The abstainers were compared with the experimenters on each of the CCQ items. At age 11, the abstainers were described as relatively fearful and anxious, using and responding to reason, not physically active, not vital or energetic or lively, inhibited and constricted, not liking to compete, not curious and open to new experiences, not interesting or arresting, physically cautious, neat and orderly (implies fussiness), anxious in unpredictable environments, not having a rapid personal tempo, looking to adults for help and direction, not responsive to humor, not self-assertive, not self-reliant or confident, shy and reserved (preceding items significant at the .05 level), cold and unresponsive, immobilized under stress, obedient and compliant, not calm or relaxed, planful and likely to think

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5. These hypotheses are based on conceptual considerations as well as on results of factor analytic examination of the age 18 CAQ data. See the section entitled Underlying Personality Factors: Linear and Curvilinear Relationships.

6. The use of one-tailed tests may seem insufficiently conservative to Some. However, the thrust of the findings would be the same regardless of whether one- or two-tailed statistical tests were employed. Moreover, there is an inherent trade-off between the level of Type I and Type II errors. Given an exploratory study involving difficult-to-obtain data, it seems scientifically strategic to lessen the likelihood of Type II errors, rather than to overprotect against Type I errors (cf. Block, 1960).

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ahead, not cheerful, not talkative, and not aggressive (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

At age 7, the abstainers were described as relatively eager to please, inhibited and constricted, conventional in thought, neat and orderly, planful and likely to think ahead, not verbally expressive, not seeking to be independent and autonomous (preceding items significant at the .05 level), not proud of their accomplishments, not physically active, immobilized under stress, obedient and compliant, not self-assertive, not competent and skillful, and not creative (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

These descriptions present a picture of a child who is relatively overcontrolled, timid, fearful, and morose.

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While the characterizations of these children as "anxious," "inhibited," and "immobilized under stress" are telling, more telling, perhaps, may be the descriptions of what these children are not; relative to the reference group of experimenters, they are not warm and responsive, not curious and open to new experience, not active, not vital, and not cheerful.

Quality of Parenting

Table 4 lists the mean scores for the PCIQ items that discriminate between the mothers of frequent users, experimenters, and abstainers. These data reflect direct observations of mother-child interactions when the subjects were five years of age. Hypothesis tests are two tailed.

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Quality of Parenting: Frequent Users

Compared with the mothers of the experimenters, the mothers of the frequent users are described as hostile, not spontaneous with their children, not responsive or sensitive to their children's needs, critical of their children and rejecting of their ideas and suggestions, not supportive and encouraging of their children, tending to dramatize their teaching, making the test situation grim and distasteful rather than fun, pressuring their children to work at the tasks, underprotective of their children, overly interested in and concerned with their children's performance, conductingthe session in such a way that their children do not enjoy it (preceding items significant at the .05 level), appearing to lack pride in and be ashamed of their children, seeming to be confused about what is expected of them in the test situation, conducting the session in unusual or atypical ways, not giving their children praise, and not having a clear and coherent teaching style (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

In brief the mothers of the frequent users are perceived as relatively cold, unresponsive, and underprotective. They appear to give their children little encouragement, while, conjointly, they are pressuring and overly interested in their children's "performance. " The apparent net effect of this double-bind is that they turn a potentially enjoyable interaction into a grim and unpleasant one.

Few items discriminated between the fathers of frequent users and the fathers of experimenters.

Quality of Parenting: Abstainers

Compared with the mothers of the experimenters, the mothers of the abstainers were described as hostile, not responsive or sensitive to their children's needs, critical of their children and rejecting of their ideas and suggestions, frustrated by an inability to find adequate strategies for teaching their children, not valuing their children's originality, not supportive and encouraging of their children, overly interested in, and concerned with, their children's performance, impatient with their children (preceding items significant at the .05 level), appearing to lack pride in and be ashamed of their children, seemingto be confused about what is expected of them in the test situation, conducting the session in unusual or atypical ways, not giving their children praise, not having a clear and coherent teaching style, pressuring their children to work at the tasks, and conducting the session in such a way that their children do not enjoy it (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

Like the mothers of the frequent users, these mothers are perceived as relatively cold and unresponsive. They give their children little encouragement, while, conjointly, they are pressuring and overly interested in their children's performance. Again, the apparent net effect is that they make the interaction grim and unenjoyable.

A variety of PCIQ items discriminated between fathers of abstainers and fathers of experimenters (these items are listed here and are not presented in a separate

May 1990 * American Psychologist * 622

table). Compared with the fathers of the experimenters, the fathers of the abstainers were described as relatively attentive to the cognitive elements in the test situation, not responsive or sensitive to their children's needs, not allowing open disagreement between parent and child, maintaining tight control of the session, critical of their children and rejecting of their ideas and suggestions, appearing to lack pride in and be ashamed of their children, not encouraging their children to proceed independently, not valuing their children's originality, using physical means (e.g., body language and facial expression) to communicate with their children, overly interested in, and concerned with, their children's performance, impatient with their children, conducting the session in such a way that the children do not enjoy it, not deriving pleasure from being with their children, intruding physically into their children's activities (preceding items significant at the .05 level), setting too fast a pace for their children, seeming confused about what is expected in the situation, not easy and relaxed, and pressuring their children to work at the tasks (preceding items significant at the .10 level).

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7. These alpha coefficients are somewhat inflated because they were calculated from the same sample used to generate the factors.
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are judged to be relatively overcontrolled with respect to impulse expression and frequent users are judged to be relatively undercontrolled. Finally, the U-shaped relations described here do not appear to be symmetric: Although both abstainers and frequent users are evaluated relatively unfavorably in terms of the Quality of Interpersonal Relations and Subjective Distress factors, it also appears that frequent users are evaluated less favorably by far.

To test these observations formally, three separate hierarchical multiple regressions were performed, in which level of marijuana use served as a predictor of the Quality of Interpersonal Relations, Subjective Distress, and Ego-Control scales, respectively.8 Each regression equation included both a linear and a quadratic term. The regressions were "hierarchical" in the sense that the linear term entered the regression equation first, followed by the quadratic term, which provided a test of curvilinearity. The regression analyses are based on the full sample of 101 subjects for whom drug use and personality data were available; the previous distinctions between abstainers, experimenters, and frequent users were ignored.

Table 6 presents the results of the three regression analyses. Both linear and quadratic terms contributed significantly in the regression equation to predict Quality of Interpersonal Relations, and in the regression equation to predict Subjective Distress (i.e., the quadratic terms explained significant incremental variance, over and above the variance explained by the linear terms). The significant contributions of the quadratic terms indicate that these personality factors manifest, at least to some extent, U- or inverted U-shaped relations with level of drug use. The quadratic term did not significantly contribute to the regression equation to predict Ego-Control, indicating that the relation between drug use and Ego-Control is essentially linear. Ego-Control is quite strongly related to drug use (R = .52, p <.0001), a finding similar to that obtained when the subjects were 14 years of age (see Block et al., 1988). Quality of Interpersonal Relations and Subjective Distress are also significantly related, but less strongly (R = .33, p <.005, and R = .29, p <.05, respectively).

Figure 1 graphically illustrates the best-fit regression lines to predict Quality of Interpersonal Relations, Subjective Distress, and Ego-Control. It can be seen that both Quality of Interpersonal Relations and Subjective Distress show somewhat U- (or inverted U) shaped relations with level of drug use (i.e., moderate experimentation with marijuana is associated with more positive interpersonal relationships, and greater subjective well-being, than either no marijuana use or heavy use). These U-shaped relations are clearly asymmetric, with heavy marijuana

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8. Marijuana use is an ordinal variable (0 = never tried marijuana, 6 = daily marijuana use; see Method section). Level of marijuana use is used as the predictor variable in these regression analyses because it carries the most fine-grained information regarding drug involvement and because it is the primary variable upon which classification as abstainer, experimenter, or frequent user was based.
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use associated with much greater intrapersonal and interpersonal disturbance than abstention. It can also be seen from Figure 1 that the relation between drug use and Ego-Control is linear: the more impulsivity, the greater the level of drug use.

General Discussion

Summary of Major Findings

On the basis of the drug use information collected at age 18, subjects were divided into nonoverlapping groups made up of frequent drug users, experimenters, and abstainers. At age 18, frequent users were observed to be alienated, deficient in impulse control, and manifestly distressed, compared with experimenters. At age 18, abstainers were observed to be anxious, emotionally constricted, and lacking in social skills, compared with experimenters.

Differences between the groups were evident during childhood as well, at the age 7 and age 11 assessments. Consistent with the age 18 findings, frequent users were judged to be relatively insecure, unable to form healthy relationships, and emotionally distressed as children, compared with experimenters. Also consistent with the age 18 findings, abstainers were judged to be relatively anxious, inhibited, and morose as children, compared with experimenters.

Additionally, both frequent users and abstainers were judged to have received poorer maternal parenting than experimenters, as assessed by direct observations of mother-child interactions when the subjects were five years old. Compared with the mothers of experimenters, both the mothers of frequent users and the mothers of abstainers were perceived to be cold, critical, pressuring, and unresponsive to their children's' needs.

There were no noteworthy findings involving the fa-

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thers of frequent users. However, fathers of abstainers were seen (in comparison with the fathers of experimenters) as relatively unresponsive to their children's needs and as authoritarian, autocratic, and domineering.

At age 18, the underlying personality factors relevant to an understanding of drug use appear to be Quality of Interpersonal Relations, Subjective Distress, and Ego-Control. When level of marijuana use is treated as a continuous variable, both the Quality of Interpersonal Relations and the Subjective Distress factors show somewhat U-shaped relationships with level of marijuana use. Ego-Control appears to be linearly related to level of marijuana use, with heavy users showing the poorest impulse control.

On the Relation Between Drug Use and Psychological Health

When the psychological findings are considered as a set, it is difficult to escape the inference that experimenters are the psychologically healthiest subjects, healthier than either abstainers or frequent users. Psychological health is meant here in a global and nonspecific sense, consistent with ordinary conversational usage, and consistent also with empirical recognitions by mental health researchers that a general psychological health/psychological distress factor underlies diverse clinical syndromes (e.g., Dohrenwend, Shrout, Egri, & Mendelsohn, 1980; Tanaka & Huba, 1984; Watson & Clark, 1984). The inference that there is an inverted U-shaped relation between level of drug use and psychological adjustment is supported by the patterns of Q-sort items characterizing abstainers, experimenters, and frequent users, and also by the U- (and inverted U) shaped relations observed between level of marijuana use and the two personality factors, Quality of Interpersonal Relations and Subjective Distress.

The finding that frequent users are relatively maladjusted has been obtained by many other investigators. The finding that abstainers also show some signs of relative maladjustment (albeit of a very different kind) is, perhaps, unusual. In order to understand this latter finding, we suggest it is important to consider both the meaning of drug use within adolescent peer culture, as well as the psychology of adolescent development.

First, it is necessary to recognize that in contemporary American culture, there is wide prevalence and apparent acceptability of marijuana use in late adolescence. The majority of the 18-year-olds in our sample approximately two thirds had tried marijuana at one time or another. Such a high usage rate is consistent with the findings from national probability samples (Johnston et al., 1986; Johnston, Bachman, & O'Malley, 1981a, 1981b; Miller et al., 1983; NIDA, 1986). Thus, some experimentation with marijuana cannot be considered deviant behavior for high school seniors in this culture at this time. In a statistical sense it is not trying marijuana that has become deviant.

Second, the extended period of adolescence is a time of transition, a time when young people face the developmental task of differentiating themselves from parents and family and forging independent identities. Experimenting with values and beliefs, exploring new roles and identities, and testing limits and personal boundaries are normative behaviors during adolescence, and they serve important developmental ends (cf. Erikson, 1968; Havinghurst, 1972).

Given these factors---the ubiquity and apparent acceptability of marijuana in the peer culture and the developmental appropriateness of experimentation and limit-testing during adolescence---it is not surprising that by age 18, psychologically healthy, sociable, and reasonably inquisitive individuals would have been tempted to try marijuana. We would not expect these essentially normal and certainly normative adolescents to abuse the drug (and it is crucial to distinguish between experimentation and abuse) because they would have little need for drugs as an outlet for emotional distress or as a means of compensating for lack of meaningful human relationships---but we should not be surprised if they try it. Indeed, not to do so may reflect a degree of inhibition and social isolation in an 18-year-old.9

Although no prior study has focused explicitly on the psychology of adolescent abstainers, there is some empirical precedent for the present finding that abstainers are not the most well-adjusted of adolescents. Hogan, Mankin, Conway, and Fox (1970), using a self-report personality inventory, compared marijuana users with nonusers in a college population and found that users "are more socially skilled, have a broader range of interests, are more adventuresome, and more concerned with the feelings of others" (p. 63). Nonusers were characterized as "too deferential to external authority, narrow in their interests, and overcontrolled" (p. 61). These findings, based on entirely different methodology, are strikingly similar to our own. In a similar vein, Bentler (1987) reported a small but reliable association between marijuana use and the development of a positive self-concept.

We do not suggest that the inverted U-shaped relation between level of drug use and psychological health expresses a fundamental psychological "principle" or "law." Rather, we view this finding as a function of historical and social circumstances-specifically, of the current prevalence of drug use in this culture, conjoined with the developmentally appropriate propensity of adolescents to explore and experiment. Gergen's (1973) arguments regarding "social psychology as history" may be applicable here.

The U-shaped relations between psychological health and drug use are reminiscent of U-shaped relations between psychological health and alcohol use noted in an earlier generation of subjects. Thus, Jones (1968, 1971) found that moderate drinkers were psychologically healthier than either problem drinkers or abstainers.

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9. In a previous report on the psychological correlates of drug use in early adolescence (at age 14), the relations observed between drug use and psychological factors were essentially monotonic, with drug users characterized by undercontrol and alienation (Block et al., 1988). The curvilinear relations observed in the present study were not fully discernible then, perhaps because issues of experimentation and identity formation had not yet become paramount.
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Moreover, the undercontrolled, alienated personality attributes of problem drinkers and the overcontrolled, diffident personality attributes of alcohol abstainers were quite similar to the personality attributes that characterize frequent drug users and drug abstainers in the present study. Given the prevalence and apparent acceptability of marijuana use among adolescents today, it would seem that marijuana use has taken on psychological and sociological meanings for young people that, in earlier generations, were associated with alcohol use.

Toward an Understanding of Frequent Drug Users

If drug use among experimenters reflects normative adolescent exploration and inquisitiveness, it reflects something quite different in the group we have labeled frequent users. Frequent users differ profoundly from the comparison group of experimenters, and indications of their social and psychological maladjustment are pervasive.

At age 18, the frequent users appear unable to invest in, or derive pleasure from, meaningful personal relationships. Indeed, they seem fortified against the possibility of such relationships through their hostility, distrust, and emotional withdrawal. Neither do they appear to be capable of investing in school and work, or of channeling their energies toward meaningful future goals. They are, then, alienated from the "love and work" that lend a sense of satisfaction and meaning to life. Consistent with this, they appear to feel troubled and inadequate. It is easy to see how these characteristics could create a vicious cycle: Feeling troubled and inadequate, these adolescents withdraw from work and relationships, and alienated from work and relationships, they feel all the more troubled and inadequate.

Such a pattern of alienation can be expected to go hand in hand with an impaired ability to control and regulate impulses. When there is little investment in either work or relationships, that is, when there is little connection with those things that give life a sense of stability and purpose, then the impulses of the moment become paramount. The impulses are not adequately transformed or mediated by a broader system of values and goals because such a system is lacking.

Shapiro (1965) has written eloquently on this point:

The normal person "tolerates" frustration or postpones the satisfaction of his whim at least in part because he is also interested in other things; his heart is set on goals and interests that are independent of the immediate frustration or extend beyond the whim and supercede it in subjective significance. This is not simply a matter of intellectual choice. Rather, the existence of these general goals and interests automatically provides a perspective, a set of dimensions in which a passing whim or an immediate frustration is experienced. In the absence of such goals and interests, the immediately present frustration or the promised satisfaction must, accordingly, gain in subjective significance, and under these conditions forbearance or tolerance is unthinkable. (pp. 145-146)

Drugs would have a special appeal to the alienated and impulsive individuals we are discussing. The temporary effects of various drugs "numb out" feelings of

isolation and inadequacy; they offer transient gratification to individuals who lack deeper and more meaningful gratifications (i.e., through relationships and work); and given the poor ability of these individuals to regulate impulse, the urge toward drug use would meet with little inner resistance and would be little modified by a broader value system.

The traits that characterize the frequent users can be seen, then, to form a theoretically coherent syndrome, characterized by the psychological triad of alienation, impulsivity, and subjective distress. The data indicate that the roots of this syndrome predate adolescence and predate initiation of drug use.

As early as age 7, the frequent users show signs of the alienation, undercontrol, and emotional distress that will characterize them at age 18. Relative to experimenters, they are described as not getting along well with other children, as not developing genuine and close relationships, as not showing concern for moral issues, as not trustworthy or dependable, as having bodily symptoms from stress, as afraid of being deprived, as appearing to feel unworthy, as inappropriate in emotive behavior, and so on (see Table 2). The data clearly indicate, then, that the relative maladjustment of the frequent users precedes the initiation of drug use.

This relative maladjustment perhaps may be traced, at least in part, to the maternal parenting that the frequent users received, as assessed by direct observations of mother-child interactions when the subjects were five years of age. Relative to the mothers of experimenters, the mothers of frequent users were perceived as hostile, critical and rejecting, and not sensitive or responsive to their children's needs. Moreover, they seemed to place their children in a double-bind: Although they gave their children little support and encouragement, they were simultaneously pressuring and overly concerned with their children's "performance." 10

Toward an Understanding of Abstainers

Adolescents who have never experimented with marijuana or any other drug have not been the subject of research attention, if only because their behavior does not pose an obvious, confronting societal problem and because it has been presumed categorically that not using drugs goes hand in hand with psychological health. However, our data suggest that, relative to experimenters, abstainers in late adolescence are somewhat maladjusted.

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10. These findings do not necessarily imply that the emotional difficulties of frequent drug users can be blamed on poor mothering. Such a view may in part be correct, but it may also be too simplistic. As proponents of family therapy remind us (e.g., Haley, 1976; Hoffman, 1981; Minuchin, 1974), it is difficult to speak of simple causation when discussing a family system. If a mother is not sufficiently responsive to her child's needs, it may be because an emotionally impoverished marital relationship does not leave her with the emotional resources needed to invest in her child. In such a case, causation could just as easily be said to lie with the father as with the mother. The point here is that, given a pattern of reciprocal and circular causation within a dysfunctional family system, a "causal" relationship might be found nearly anywhere a researcher happened to look.
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Unlike the patent, blatant maladjustment of frequent drug users, however, the psychological inadequacies of abstainers are largely a private matter, limiting of life as it is led, and do not attract societal attention. The constriction, uneasiness with affect, and interpersonal deficiencies of abstainers are recognizable more by way of omission than commission.

By omission, we refer to personal potentialities that seem to remain unfulfilled, specifically, potentialities for emotional gratifications, friendship, and human warmth and closeness. It is the relative capacity (or rather, incapacity ) to experience these positive qualities of life that distinguishes abstainers from experimenters. Relative to experimenters, the abstainers are described at age 18 as overcontrolled and prone to delay gratification unnecessarily, not able to enjoy sensuous experiences, prone to avoid close interpersonal relationships, not gregarious, not liked and accepted by people, and so on. Thus, their avoidance of drugs seems less the result of "moral fiber" or successful drug education than the result of relative alienation from their peers and a characterological overcontrol of needs and impulses.

It seems likely that the relative overcontrol and emotional constriction of the abstainers serves the psychological purpose of containing or masking feelings of vulnerability. There is some evidence for this hypothesis in the age 18 personality descriptions of our subjects, for the abstainers are described at this age as relatively anxious. However, the strongest support for this hypothesis comes from the childhood data, when the relative maladjustment of these subjects is most manifest. At age 11, for example, prior to initiation of drug use, the abstainers are described (relative to experimenters) as fearful and anxious, inhibited and constricted, immobilized under stress, anxious in unpredictable environments, not curious and open to new experience, not vital or energetic or lively, not confident, not responsive to humor, and not cheerful. These traits would appear to reflect a susceptibility to anxiety and, perhaps, a consequent avoidance of circumstances or behaviors perceived as risky.

The hypothesis that emotional constriction serves the purpose of "containing" feelings of vulnerability is reinforced further by observations of mother-child interactions when the children were age five: The mothers of the abstainers were perceived (relative to the mothers of the experimenters) as unresponsive, cold, critical, and rejecting. Such parenting clearly has negative implications for psychological resiliency and well-being. It is interesting that the descriptions of the mothers of abstainers are strikingly similar to the descriptions of the mothers of the frequent users. These results at least raise the possibility that the behavior of the abstainers and the behavior of the frequent users, manifestly so different, represent alternative reactions to an underlying psychological vulnerability.

The question of why abstainers and frequent users traveled such different developmental pathways remains an open one. Character formation is a matter of complex temperamental and developmental vicissitudes, and such questions have no straightforward answer. Our findings suggest the speculation that the fathers of the abstainers; played a telling role in their character development. They acted toward their children in ways that would seem to increase anxiety, but their stern, authoritarian, and autocratic manner may have also provided a model for dealing with that anxiety. It is conceivable that the children internalized their fathers' attitudes, adopting an attitude toward their own impulses that paralleled their father's attitudes toward them.

Implications for Theory and Social Policy

Taken as a whole, the present data indicate that drug use and drug abstinence have theoretically coherent antecedents and must be understood within the context of an individual's total psychology. Because experimenters and frequent users are, psychologically, very different kinds of people, the meaning of drug use in these two groups is very different. In the case of experimenters, drug use appears to reflect age appropriate and developmentally understandable experimentation. In the case of frequent users, drug use appears to be a manifestation of a more general pattern of maladjustment, a pattern that appears to predate adolescence and predate initiation of drug use. Undoubtedly, drug use exacerbates this earlier established pattern but, of course, the logic of a longitudinal research design precludes invocation of drug use as causing this personality syndrome.

Current theories (e.g., Akers, Krohn, Lanze-Kaduce, & Radosevich, 1979; Jessor & Jessor, 1977, 1978; Kaplan, Martin, & Robins, 1982) tend to emphasize the role of peers in influencing drug use. The importance of peers in providing an encouraging surround for experimentation cannot be denied, but "peer-centered" or "environmental" explanations of problem drug use seem inadequate, given the present longitudinal findings (cf. Margulies, Kessler, & Kandel, 1977).

The discovery of psychological antecedents predating drug use (see also Block et al., 1988; Kellam et al., 1975; Kellam et al., 1983; Kellam, Ensminger, & Simon, 1980) can to some extent be integrated with explanations of drug use that emphasize environmental factors, once it is recognized that individuals, from early childhood, actively construct and seek out environments that, given their essential personality, motivational, and intellectual characteristics, they find particularly harmonious and vivifying (see, e.g., Scarr & McCartney, 1983). Rather than being passive recipients of "environmental" influences, by the time of adolescence, individuals are already appreciably formed psychologically and are actively evoking, actively seeking, and actively forging the circumstances that will suit them and that will then, in an adventitious way, "impinge" on them.

The recognition that problem drug use (and, for that matter, abstinence) has developmental antecedents, that it is a part of a broad and theoretically coherent psychological syndrome, and that it is not adequately explained in terms of peer influence has important implications for social policy.

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Current social policy seems to follow from the assumption that peer influence leads to experimentation, which in turn leads to abuse. Thus, efforts at drug education are aimed at discouraging experimentation by emphasizing the need to "just say no" to peer influence. But adolescent experimentation in and of itself does not appear to be personally or societally destructive (see also Kandel, Davies, Karus, & Yamaguchi, 1986, and Newcomb & Bentler, 1988), and peer influence does not appear to be an adequate explanation for problem drug use. Moreover, given the developmental tasks of the prolonged adolescent period, efforts aimed at eliminating adolescent experimentation are likely to be costly and to meet with limited success.

Current efforts at drug "education" seem flawed on two counts. First, they are alarmist, pathologizing normative adolescent experimentation and limit-testing, and perhaps frightening parents and educators unnecessarily. Second, and of far greater concern, they trivialize the factors underlying drug abuse, implicitly denying their depth and pervasiveness. For so long as problem drug use is construed primarily in terms of "lack of education," so long is attention diverted from its disturbing psychological underpinnings: the psychological triad of alienation, impulsivity, and distress. Paradoxically, then, the "just say no" approach may be concerned with a "problem" that, from a developmental viewpoint, need not be seen as alarming (adolescent experimentation), and it may be dismayingly oblivious to a serious problem that is extremely alarming (the ubiquity of the psychological syndrome that appears to underlie problem drug use).

The concept of drug "education" may have its current popular appeal in part because the link between the problem (drugs) and the attempted solution (drug education) is self-evident and thus reassures concerned parents, educators, and policymakers that "something is being done." But educational approaches to drug prevention have had limited success (Tobler, 1986), and society's limited resources might better be invested in interventions focusing on the personality syndrome underlying problem drug use.

Given current understandings of personality development, it would seem that the psychological triad of alienation, impulsivity, and distress would be better addressed through efforts aimed at encouraging sensitive and empathic parenting, at building childhood self-esteem, at fostering sound interpersonal relationships, and at promoting involvement and commitment to meaningful goals. Such interventions may not have the popular appeal of programs that appear to tackle the drug problem "directly," but may have greater individual and societal payoff in the end.

Forfending Misinterpretation

The finding that experimenters are the psychologically healthiest adolescents, and the observation that some drug experimentation, in and of itself, does not seem to be psychologically destructive, may sit badly with some. In particular, it may sit badly with drug counselors who "know" from clinical experience that there is no level of drug use that is safe, that it is dangerous to suggest otherwise, and that the most effective intervention is one aiming at total abstinence. To avoid any misunderstanding, we wish to make clear that there is no contradiction between this therapeutic perspective and the findings we have reported. On the contrary, we are in agreement with the therapeutic perspective.

The present data indicate that in a nonselected late adolescent sample, occasional experimentation with marijuana is not personally or societally destructive. This view is supported by longitudinal studies of the consequences of drug use (as well as by the present study of the antecedents and concomitants of drug use; see, e.g., Kandel et al., 1986; Newcomb & Bentler, 1988), and by the fact that the majority of adolescents in the United States have experimented with marijuana but have not subsequently become drug abusers. The apparent contradiction between clinical wisdom, on the one hand, and the present findings, on the other, is resolved when it is recognized that individuals who present themselves for drug treatment are not representative of the general population of adolescents, but instead constitute a special, highly selected subpopulation. The psychological meaning of drug use is very different for this fractional group existing within the larger population of adolescents. For them, experimentation with drugs is highly destructive because drugs easily become part of a broader pathological syndrome. For adolescents more generally, some drug experimentation apparently does not have psychologically catastrophic implications.

In closing, one final clarification is in order. In presenting research on a topic as emotionally charged as drug use, there is always the danger that findings may be misinterpreted or misrepresented. Specifically, we are concerned that some segments of the popular media may misrepresent our findings as indicating that drug use might somehow improve an adolescent's psychological health. Although the incorrectness of such an interpretation should be obvious to anyone who has actually read this article, our concern about media misrepresentation requires us to state categorically that our findings do not support such a view, nor should anything we have said remotely encourage such an interpretation.

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