There is a substantial body of research into childhood misbehavior and conduct disorder (CD) as explanations for illicit drug use, but less attention to the issue of whether risk factors for illicit drug use might vary by level of CD. We have started to investigate this issue by testing specifically for epidemiologic evidence that earning pay at a job or assuming other adult-like roles might signal an increased risk of starting illicit drug use among youths with no CD or no more than minimal CD. These hypotheses were tested by conducting incident case-control analyses of self-report data gathered from 12-17 year olds sampled for the 1992 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Youths were excluded if they reported any positive responses to 11 questions on CD or if they reported starting illicit drug use more than 1 year ago. We used post-stratification to hold constant shared neighborhood characteristics and multiple logistic regression models to estimate relative risk of starting illicit drug use in relation to the suspected risk factors. Out of 5123 youths at risk, we were able to match 162 incident cases who recently had started illicit drug use with 722 neighborhood controls. Adjusting for demographic factors, starting illicit drug use was independently associated with working for pay. There was some evidence implicating other adult-like roles. A parallel investigation of adolescents with at least one symptom of conduct disorder revealed the lack of association between starting illicit drug use and working for pay. These findings are compatible with previous empirical research on the costs and benefits of adolescent work. This research indicated that there is a number of negative outcomes associated with adolescent work. In additional analyses, we have examined similarities and differences in the profiles of risk factors for illicit drug use among youth with and without CD. These results have been presented at the annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and are being prepared for submission as a full-length publication.
