ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the prevalence of drug-taking behavior among adolescents by examining changes over time and variations among comparable age groups. It explains the extent to which period or age effects are related to patterns of drug-taking behavior among adolescents. P. M. O’Malley, J. G. Bachman, and L. D. Johnston point out that there are three kinds of change that may occur in the prevalence of illicit and licit drug use: period effects, age effects, and cohort effects. The 1982 and 1988 National Household Survey’s findings show clearly that Alaskan youth, as first observed in 1983, continued to exceed their lower-48 counterparts in every category, and by considerable margins in many instances. Although there are variations in patterns of use on both the Alaska and National Samples, the change for some substances are in opposite directions. A comparison of the Alaskan data for the same age group shows that Alaskan 12–17 year-olds exceed the national levels for every substance.
