This book presents new and important information about adolescent drug
use. The book is intended for human service professionals, teachers,
researchers, and students interested in the issue of early adolescent
drug use and its causes and pervasiveness in a multiethnic population.
Today, the field of adolescent drug use research relies on integrative
models that permit competing explanations of drug use. This approach
promotes flexibility in testing hypotheses pertinent to adol- cents of
very different social and cultural backgrounds or personal
characteristics. Longitudinal studies, including the one presented in
these pages, have identified many risk and protective factors or
processes that are linked to adolescent drug use. We review these
throughout this book and present new information from our own research.
Our point of departure is to extend and elaborate descriptive research
and models of adolescent drug research to cover the unique and diverse
experiences of adolescents who are Hispanic, African American, and White
non-Hispanic.