Treatment of adolescent drug abusers

Adolescent drug abuse is acknowledged to be a major national problem, yet little is known about adolescent drug treatment programs and their effectiveness. There is, however, a growing body of knowledge on the correlates of adolescent drug use and the kinds of problems presented by adolescents entering treatment. The problems are complex (e.g., involved family situations, multiple drug use patterns, psychological and socioeconomic factors, and the challenge of the adolescent phase of development), and the resources are scarce. Some modest attempts have been made to analyze existing data sets and to evaluate promising treatment approaches and models directed to adolescent drug abusers, and the findings are encouraging. More needs to be done in terms of developing, testing, and evaluating treatment approaches for adolescent substance abusers.