Trends in drug orientations and behavior: changes in a rural community, 1975-1982

This paper examines trends in rural American rates of marijuana use and drug-related orientations over an 8-year period. The younger rural youths (13-year-olds) in our three surveys (1975, 1979, and 1982) reported significant declines in rates of use and expressed a general trend toward conservatism. The attitudes and orientations of older youths (16-year-olds) changed also, and in the same directions, but those changes were not statistically significant. Use rates for 16-year-olds, on the other hand, increased, but again the changes were not statistically significant. In at least one cohort we studied, attitudes changed prior to shifts in behavior. We also observed that the predictive ability of the selected attitudes and orientations increased considerably from 1975 to 1982. In the midst of a movement toward conservatism on drug issues, liberalness was even more closely linked to marijuana use than in the previous decade. Lastly, we evaluate the implications of these findings for drug prevention policy and future research.