Drug Abuse and School Children: A Survey and

The purpose of this paper is twofold: (1) to survey the nature of the drug abuse problem among younger students; and (2) to determine whether profiles from abuse research.on older student groups apply to a younger student sample. Subje%:ts were 676 fifth graders in a semi-urban area. Incidence data on drug use and availability were gathered through anonymous questionnaires administered during school. Students indicated the number of times they had taken a drug, how many times they had been offered a drug, and how many boys and girls they knew who took drugs. To determine whether a current adolescent drug abuse profile applied to the younger sample, questions and scales were developed from Wiener's research on English school children. Results indicate that use of drugs is not a major problem for this particular fifth grade group although drugs were available to them. No indication of a general drug-prone profile developed for the sample. (Author/HMV) U S OF PARTMENT OF HEALT