Relative risk factors in detecting adolescent drug abuse

Detecting adolescent drug abuse remains to be a difficult proposition because of its secret nature. This paper investigates the significance of other factors as indicators of possible drug use by an adolescent. Peer drug use, suspension at school, law infringements, truancy, conflict with parents, alcohol use and cigarette smoking were the relative risk factors investigated among 953 adolescents. The most predictive of those was peer drug use. The more of those factors were present in an adolescent, the higher the risk of possible drug use.