Social Tolerance for Drug Use Among Junior High School Students in Taipei, Taiwan.

This study examines the degree of social tolerance for drug use among junior high school students in Taipei, Taiwan, and the relationships between their social tolerance for drug use and their individual, family, and drug environment characteristics. The theories of anomie, socialization, social control, and differential association are used as a guide for these examinations. The data for this study were collected from a sample of 604 students from 16 classes in three grades at five schools using a self-administrated questionnaire designed for this purpose. These classes were randomly selected from all 85 junior high schools which were stratified by public and private, school size, and administrative districts. The results reveal that students are more likely to tolerate their friends\u27 use of drugs than their own use of drugs. Among individual influences, third grade students and students who had infrequent interaction with major teachers were more likely to tolerate drug use, controlling for all of the individual, family, and drug environment characteristics. Family influences had almost no effect on the social tolerance for drug use. Among drug environment influences, students who had classmates and friends who encouraged them to use drugs were most tolerant of use of drugs. This study can be the beginning of similar studies conducted annually for tracking the trends of increasing social tolerance for drug use. These studies will contribute to our understanding of juveniles\u27 attitudes toward drugs and help us to predict the change of drug use rates. Some of the variables within individual characteristics and drug environment show more important effects on social tolerance of drug use than other variables. This suggests that socialization, social control, and differential association theories offer a good explanation for drug attitudes