Adults' Drug Use: Relationship to Perceived Drug Use of Parents, Friends While Growing Up, and Present Friends

Abstract
Results from a random household survey of the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area [Massachusetts, USA] show a consistent and relatively strong association of adults'' use of coffee, tobacco, alcohol, tranquilizers and marihuana with their perceptions of present friends'' use. Associations with parents'' and past adolescent friends'' use are much weaker. The results support efforts to explain illicit drug use with general theories of behavior acquisition and cast doubt on the utility of deviance theories.