SUBSTANCE EXPERIMENTATION IN THE COLORADO-ADOPTION-PROJECT

The use of illicit drugs has risen sharply among adolescents in recent years, adding urgency to the need for a better understanding of its e tiology and predisposing factors. it has been suggested that adopted c hildren may be more susceptible to adjustment problems, including subs tance use. The current study examined prevalence of substance use/expe rimentation (cigarettes, alcohol. marijuana, and other drugs) and age at first experimentation for adopted and non-adopted participants in t he Colorado Adoption Project (CAP), based on telephone interview data for 526 (260 adopted and 266 non-adopted) subjects in grade 7 (average age of 12.5 years), and subsets of this sample in grades 8-12 (ages 1 3-17). Despite the power of the large sample sizes to detect mean diff erences, the only significant differences were in the proportions of i ndividuals drinking by grades 8 and 9, and smoking by grades 9 and 10, with adopted adolescents smoking and drinking more than non-adopted a dolescents. However, differences between adopted and non-adopted adole scents accounted for less than 4% of the variance in experimentation. Therefore, adoptive status in this prospective, population-based sampl e does not appear to be an important predictor of substance use/experi mentation in adolescence. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.