Measuring Novel Drug Perceptions: Salvia divinorum, Gender, and Peer Delinquency.

Researchers commonly use a person\u27s perception of the drug use of friends to determine the impact that peers exert on one\u27s own behavior. Recently, there has been concern over this measure\u27s validity. Novel drugs, which are either newly discovered drugs or existing substances only recently used for recreational purposes, may be used so infrequently that people have too few observable opportunities to accurately develop perceptions of their peer\u27s use. Employing survey data collected in 2009 from 2,154 individuals within friendship pairs in the Southeast United States, we explore how gender affects perceptions of the infrequently used, novel drug Salvia divinorum. The study\u27s limitations are noted