title: Perceptions of legal and illegal drugs: comparisons of parents, adolescents, and best friends.
abstract: The topic of drugs is a sensitive issue and an area where considerable conflict and disagreement may exist between parents and children. In this study, 50 family groups (consisting of father-mother-adolescent-adolescent's friend) responded to questions about a range of legal and illegal drugs used in Australia. A multidimensional scaling analysis revealed that parents, adolescents, and adolescents' best friends had similar perceptions about drugs, especially distinctions between legal and illegal substances, and drugs used more by younger people. LSD, cocaine and heroin were judged by all groups as causing personal and family problems, being strong and dangerous, not socially acceptable, bad for one's health and associated with crime. Marihuana, tobacco and alcohol were judged in opposite terms, as well as being perceived as popular, widespread and used by youth. Subjects' perceptions of drugs were very similar to representative state and national community samples, but were inaccurate when compared to official figures for drug prevalence and morbidity. In particular, respondents showed little appreciation of the problems associated with widely available legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco.
authors.affiliation: Key Centre in Strategic Management, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Queensland, 4001, Australia.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wilks
authors.forename: V J
authors.initials: VJ
authors.lastname: Callan