PERSONALITY-VARIABLES IN COCAINE-DEPENDENT AND MARIJUANA-DEPENDENT PATIENTS

Khantzian (1985) hypothesized that the drug of choice of patients with substance-dependence disorders reflects an attempt at self-medication . Cocaine- and marijuana-dependent inpatients were compared using the MMPI to test this hypothesis. Those two groups of patients did not dif fer on the standard validity and clinical scales of the MMPI, and thei r scores were basically similar to a group of alcohol-dependent inpati ents and a group of psychiatric patients of similar age. There was no single MMPI code type that was characteristic of either group of subst ance-dependent patients. It appears that drug of choice had little eff ect on the MMPI scores of these two groups of substance-dependent pati ents. These results are not consistent with the theory of self-medicat ion.