title: Prescription stimulants are "a okay": applying neutralization theory to college students' nonmedical prescription stimulant use.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  National college health data indicate that prescription stimulants are the most widely misused prescription drugs among college students, with 9% admitting to nonmedical use within the past year.(1) Although motivations for the nonmedical use of these drugs have been explored, scant attention has been paid to justifications for nonmedical use. This article fills that gap by expounding upon the justifications students incite to defend their nonmedical use of these drugs.
  
  
  METHODS
  Seventy-six college students from a large, public northwestern university.
  
  
  METHODS
  Semistructured interviews were conducted during the 2010-2011 academic year.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Inductive analysis uncovered social learning theories of crime/deviance, more specifically, Sykes and Matza's neutralization theory(2) as helping to inform justifications for nonmedical stimulant use. This theory was modified to better encompass the justifications that students employed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Justifications for use must become a more central part of the conversation surrounding nonmedical stimulant use among the college population.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Sociology , Washington State University , Pullman , Washington.
authors.forename: Kristin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Cutler
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063487:Prescription Drug Misuse / Q000523:psychology* / Q000639:trends; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000697:Central Nervous System Stimulants
keywords: college students; community health; justifications; prescription drugs; prescription stimulants