A causal analysis of early drug involvement in three inner-city neighborhood settings

Building upon previous studies stressing the importance of contextual effects in psychosocial behavior, we test a model of drug involvement among inner-city youths living in neighborhoods varying in the perceived degree of toughness/drug use. The drug involvement of the youths is hypothesized to result from the availability of drugs, image of drug-using/gang-involved persons, friends' drug use, and participation in street culture activities. In each of the toughness/drug use settings, image of drug-using/gang-involved persons related positively to friends' use of alcohol and marijuana, friends' use of alcohol and marijuana related positively to participation in street culture spare-time activities and drug involvement, and participation in street culture pursuits related positively to drug involvement. Neighborhood-setting-specific relationships are also observed. The complexity of the model, as reflected in the number of path coefficients, and the ability of the variables in the model to predict the youths' drug involvement increase as we proceed from low toughness/drug use (R2 = .28) to medium toughness/drug use (R2 = .30) to high toughness/drug use (R2 = .38) neighborhoods. The importance of examining youths' environmental experiences in understanding their drug involvement, especially their relationship to neighborhood drug use subcultures, is emphasized.