by National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

About the author: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse is a research group at Columbia University in New York City.

In 1995, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) launched an annual survey on public attitudes toward illegal drugs and substance abuse (see our “National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse,” July 1995). This study yielded unique insights into our national crisis of substance abuse. Far and away the most interesting and important results came from a modest subsample of teenagers, 12–17, included in that original survey essentially as an afterthought.

In 1996, we continued our investigation into those factors which contribute to a teenager’s risk of substance abuse. Our focus on the situation of teenagers derives from...