ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN DRUG-USE AND DEVIANT-BEHAVIOR IN TEENAGERS

Confirmatory factor analyses of self-reports of drug use and deviant a ctivity from 701 female and 662 male students in grade 10 revealed thr ee correlated higher-order dimensions of behavior: alcohol use and soc iability, rebelliousness, and deviant behavior, including drug use oth er than alcohol. The intercorrelations between these dimensions were 0 .548 or higher for both male and female students, indicating an underl ying unidimensionality of these activities. These results suggest that drug prevention programs that curb initial and regular use of the gat eway drugs may have a broader, spillover impact on other deviant behav ior. They also suggest that programs aimed at both deviance and drug u se are worth pursuing and that schools are an important venue for iden tifying deviant youth. The strong links between alcohol use and sociab ility underline the need to counteract the social acceptability of dri nking and focus on the social contexts in which it occurs.