For centuries, the word "addiction" meant being "given over" or devoted to something. However, the 19th century temperance and anti-opium movements used it in a more restrictive way, linking "addiction" to drugs, to illness or vice, and to withdrawal symptoms and tolerance. Both the traditional and restrictive meanings survived into the present. In the ensuing uncertainty about its meaning, some authorities now wish to replace "addiction" with substitute terms like "drug dependence", "substance abuse", etc. We hope to show that the term "addiction" is too valuable to discard. Its traditional sense designates the profoundly important, albeit sometimes harmful, capacity of people to become "given over." On the other hand, the restrictive meaning refers only to a special case, which is defined arbitrarily and inconsistently. It is outmoded because of these problems. The traditional meaning remains useful, but can be improved by clarifying the distinction between "positive" and "negative" addictions originally proposed by Glasser (1976).

The role of primary prevention of sexual offences is an understudied area. The current study examined a sample ( N = 100) of men charged or convicted of a sexual offence to determine their interest in interventions that could be offered prior to offending, reasons for not seeking out interventions in the past, and demographic information including onset of deviant sexual fantasy and interests. The majority indicated that preventative interventions, including individual and group treatment, would have been beneficial, but inaccessibility of interventions and fear of arrest prevented them from seeking services. The findings suggest that men who progress to committing a sexual offence are interested in preventative interventions but require information regarding availability of accessible support and the development of primary prevention structures to fulfill society's desire to prevent sexual offending.

Recent data from University of Wisconsin-Stout (Cook, 1987) indicate a far higher prevalence of drug addiction than had been reported earlier among students at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia (Alexander, 1985;Alexander & Schweighofer, 1988). A critical comparison of demographic and methodological differences between these two studies was undertaken. It was concluded that the Wisconsin procedure inflated the prevalence data by not ensuring that the subjects defined "addiction" consistently and by imposing a dichotomous choice on the continuous dimension of addictive involvement. We believe the lower prevalence data from the British Columbia study more validly reflect the extent of drug addiction on North American campuses.Two recent self-report studies on the prevalence of addiction among North American university students have reported dramatically different results. Cook (1987) at the University of Wisconsin-Stout reported much higher prevalences of addiction than we found at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada (Alexander, 1985;Alexander & Schweighofer, 1988). For example, 10.1,4.0, and 9.8% of the Wisconsin students reported current addictions to alcohol, illicit drugs, and cigarettes, whereas 0.0, 0.9, and 3.0% of the British Columbia students reported addictions or negative addictions to the same drugs. The first 3 columns of Table 1 summarize the addiction prevalence data from the two studies, corrected for differing sex ratios. The definitions of the terms used in Table 1 appear in Table 2.In spite of large differences in reported prevalence of addiction, there were many similarities between the two studies. Both used a definition of addiction that was heavily influenced by Stanton Peele's (1983Peele's ( ,1985 work. Both studies found that addictions cluster in particular individuals, that males are inclined to different addictions than females, and that addictions to legal drugs and nondrug activities are more common than addictions to illicit drugs.Because the Wisconsin data suggest a potential crisis of drug addiction at North American universities whereas the British Columbia data provide much less cause for alarm about drug addiction, a critical comparison of the two studies was undertaken. This report outlines this comparison and argues that the British Columbia data are more likely to represent the overall prevalence of drug addiction among university students in North America.

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