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• Teen Attitudes Toward Smoking Linked To Likelihood Of Drinking And Using Drugs 

New research by Weill Cornell Medical College researchers looks at the specific ways parents and peers influence teenagers to smoke, drink and use marijuana in combination. Among their findings: attitudes toward smoking influenced teenagers' use of multiple drugs (smoking, drinking and marijuana), and that this manifested itself differently in boys and girls.

For girls, friends were shown to be central. Ambivalent or permissive attitudes within their social group toward smoking were associated with poly-drug use -- defined as two or more of the following behaviors: smoking, drinking and marijuana use. This wasn't the case with boys, whose poly-drug use was instead predicted by the extent to which they perceived smoking to be prevalent in their larger age group -- not just among their friends.

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