Drug Use in College Students: A Test of Sociodemographic and Reference Group Models of Explanation

Abstract

This study examined the importance of reference group variables in the understanding of drug use in college students. Other studies have investigated the role of peer orientation, and this study further elaborates on the issue by specifically looking into parents and peers as reference groups for the students. This study supports the importance of reference group variables in understanding the students' use of marijuana and/or hashish. In addition, it shows that the sociodemographic variables cannot predict drug use behavior as well as the reference group variables can.

The drug-use patterns of helping-profession students in Brisbane, Australia

“…= 7, p < 0.05). The results of this study appear to be similar to other studies which show that the demographic variables of sex, year in school and religiosity are factors in alcohol use [11,17,20,25].…”

“…= 5, p < 0.001) due to importance of religion, with 14.5% of not very religious compared to 4.7% of very religious individuals using marijuana at least once a year, and 6.9% compared to 1.9%, respectively, using marijuana on a monthly basis. Other recent studies [25] have also reported that religiosity is a predictor of drug-taking behaviours, and that very religious students are less likely to use a variety of substances than those who do not consider religion important to them.…”

“…The demographic variables of sex, age, religion and religiosity which have been shown in previous studies of tertiary aged students and youth to affect alcohol and drug-taking patterns in Australia and other countries were included [17,20,22,25]. Items asking for the quantity and frequency of the use of various substances were compiled based on questions used in Australian Commonwealth and other studies [12,26].…”

“…= 21, p < 0.05) in smoking patterns due to religious preference, with 15.7% of Catholics, 13.7% of Church of England, 11.5% of other or not religious preference, and 8.8% of other Protestants smoking daily. Numerous studies, including a recent one by Murty [25], report that religion and religiosity can predict smoking and drugtaking behaviours with very religious individuals tending not to smoke as much as others.…”

A survey of drug use and attitudes toward drugs among male law students and police trainees in Queensland, Australia: A research note

“…Only 2.1 percent of police trainees admitted to current usage of the marijuana while among law students this figure was 16.3 percent. The law students high usage of marijuana supports a study by Brown (1977) which also shows that a high number (49 percent) of law students had used the substance.The low level of marijuana use among police students is perhaps due to peer group influences (Murty, 1979) or the fact that they are more "law abiding" as a group. Other explanations might be their lower age and the rigors of discipline inherent in t he dormitory-based, institutional life style of the police sample.…”