School truancy among teenagers remains a serious national problem, as evidenced by its significant association with school performance, psychological, and behavioral problems. Truancy is also positively associated with substance abuse. This study presents 18-month outcome data from a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded controlled trial…

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of brief strategic family therapy (BSFT; an evidence-based family therapy) compared to treatment as usual (TAU) as provided in community-based adolescent outpatient drug abuse programs. Method: A randomized effectiveness trial in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network compared BSFT to…

Drug courts are reinventing the drug testing framework by experimenting with new methods, including use of the sweat patch. The sweat patch is a band-aid like strip used to monitor drug court participants. The validity and reliability of the sweat patch as an effective testing method was examined, as well as the effectiveness, meaning how likely…

Background: Despite the ample interest in the measurement of substance abuse and dependence, obtaining biological samples from participants as a means to validate a scale is considered time and cost intensive and is, subsequently, largely overlooked. Objectives: To report the psychometric properties of the drug use disorder (DUD) questionnaire…

Objective: The primary purpose of this study was to test a relatively efficient strategy for enhancing the capacity of juvenile drug courts (JDC) to reduce youth substance use and criminal behavior by incorporating components of evidence-based treatments into their existing services. Method: Six JDCs were randomized to a condition in which…

Objective: Contingency management (CM) is efficacious in reducing drug use. Typically, reinforcers are provided on an individual basis to patients for submitting drug-negative samples. However, most treatment is provided in a group context, and poor attendance is a substantial concern. This study evaluated whether adding CM to group-based…

The practice of enhancing athletic performance through the use of ergogenic aids or by extraneous artificial means is as old as competitive sport itself. Although the abuse of such substances has been historically problematic, very little research assessing the attitudes of strength/power athletes concerning ergogenic aids exists. As national…

Most information on the prevalence of drug use comes from self-report surveys. The sensitivity of such information is cause for concern about the accuracy of self-report measures. In this study, self-reported drug use in the last 48 hr is compared to results from biological assays of saliva samples from 371 young adults entering clubs. The…

Background: Little is known about the context in which school-based suspicionless random drug testing (SRDT) occurs. The primary purpose of the current study was to describe school districts' responses to students' first positive result in districts with SRDT programs. Methods: Data were collected in spring 2005 from 1612 drug prevention…

One approach some U.S. schools now use to combat high rates of adolescent substance use is school-based mandatory-random student drug testing (MRSDT). Under MRSDT, students and their parents sign consent forms agreeing to the students' participation in random drug testing as a condition of participating in athletics and other school-sponsored…

The purpose of this case study was to examine random student drug testing in one school district relevant to: (a) the perceptions of students participating in competitive extracurricular activities regarding drug use and abuse; (b) the attitudes and perceptions of parents, school staff, and community members regarding student drug involvement; (c)…

Data was collected on arrested youths processed at a centralized intake facility, including youths released back to the community and those placed in secure detention. This article reports the results of a test of a structural model involving newly arrested male and female youths' sexually transmitted diseases (STD) test results, urine analysis…

Aim: To assess college students' attributions for abstinence from alcohol and illicit drugs. Method: We recruited 125 undergraduates to rate the degree to which each of 41 listed reasons influenced their abstention from six specific substances (alcohol, MDMA/ecstasy, inhalants, cocaine, marijuana, and hallucinogens). Findings: Internal consistency…

Illegal drug use and abuse by the nation's secondary school students is a continuing public health issue and this is especially true for students living in rural, low-income areas where access to intervention and treatment services is often limited. To address this issue, some school districts have implemented voluntary, randomized, student …

We investigated the extent to which a contingency management (CM) procedure that deducted money from a grand total available at the end of the study compared to a procedure in which money accumulated with continued abstinence from cigarette smoking. Results suggested that the procedure in which money increased contingent on abstinence resulted in…