Peer drug associations and emotional restraint: causes or consequences of adolescents' drug use?

A 3-wave longitudinal design was used to examine the relationships among emotional restraint, peer drug associations, and gateway drug use in a sample of 1,256 middle school students. Structural equation modeling was used to compare 3 models: (a) One model viewed drug use as a consequence of emotional restraint and peer variables; (b) 1 viewed drug use as a cause of restraint and peer variables, and (c) 1 included reciprocal effects. All 3 models fit the data fairly well. However, the reciprocal model fit the data significantly better than either of the others. Within this model, low emotional restraint was significantly related to subsequent increases in gateway drug use among boys. In contrast, peer drug models and peer pressure were not related to subsequent changes in gateway drug use. Changes in peer drug models were, however, predicted by previous levels of gateway drug use.