Discerning the epidemiology of drug use among a sample of college students

Although estimates concerning the prevalence of various forms of substance abuse vary considerably, it is critical to note that even the more conservative estimates indicate a major public health problem. Furthermore, increased drug experimentation has been frequently associated with the college experience. Utilizing a slightly modified version of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Monitoring the Future Survey, the present study examined the epidemiology of self-reported drug taking behaviors (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, tranquilizers, stimulants, psychedelics, etc.) among a sample (n = 683) of students attending a major public university. Data analyses focused on the specific settings and social groupings in which drug use occurred as well as on the frequency and type(s) of drug taking behaviors. Based on the results yielded from a disjoint cluster analysis, four distinct groups of drug users were identified. These four groups then served as categories of the dependent variable in a discriminant function analysis. A general linear models procedure was employed to identify the more efficacious discriminating (i.e., independent) variables.