Religiosity, Peers, and Adolescent Drug Use

Keywords

adolescence, drugs, religion, sociology

Abstract

In this paper we examined the relationship between religiosity, peer drug use, and adolescent drug use among 4,983 Utah adolescents and the 13,534 respondents from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Adolescents who were religious were less likely to smoke, drink heavily, and use marijuana than adolescents who were not religious. Adolescents in highly religious schools were less likely to smoke than adolescents in schools low on religiosity.Individual religiosity tended to lessen the influence of peer drug use on respondentdrug use for cigarettes, heavy drinking, and marijuana use but not for the use of other illicit drugs. The associations between individual religiosity and the four typesof drug use were not affected by the level of school religiosity. The findings wereconsistent across the two different samples and three types of drugs: cigarettes, heavy drinking, and marijuana. Social learning and social control theories wereused to explain these findings.

Original Publication Citation

Bahr, Stephen J., and John P. Hoffmann. 2008. “Religiosity, Peers, and Adolescent Drug Use.” Journal of Drug Issues 38(3): 743-770.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2008-07-01

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/6723

Publisher

Journal of Drug Issues

Language

English

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Sociology

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS