Attitudes toward drug use: trends and correlations with actual use

Monitoring revealed a consistent relationship between attitude and use for those drugs which showed a definite trend in use, whether upward or downward. Increasing use, which applied to five of the eight groups of drugs surveyed, was associated with more permissive attitude to use and an increasing denial of danger. The reverse applied to decreasing use, found only in the case of the stimulants. On the other hand, in the case of drugs which showed no change in the rate of use, a change in attitudes could still occur. In the case of tobacco and narcotics, which showed no significant overall change in use during the 3 years of monitoring, the change in attitudes reflected the effects of intervention programs. The data are interpreted to indicate that health education had arrested an upward trend in use by discouraging the potential moderate user, but failed to influence the heavy user, whose numbers increased. Reflecting the associated change in attitudes, nonusers became increasingly inclined to prohibition, all groups increasingly recognized the dangers of use, and the heavy users showed less denial of danger and a more realistic self-estimation of use than was apparent for all other groups of drugs. The relative stability of narcotics use would seem to result from the containment exerted by vigorous law enforcement rather than from a favorable response of the community to education. Overall, the attitudes became increasingly permissive and inclined to denial of danger. The data suggest that the potentiality for an upward trend in use remains a constant danger.