Five-hundred-sixty-seven heroin addicts admitted to methadone maintenance treatment programs in southern California were included in the present analysis. Systematic comparisons were made between women and men for Anglo and Chicano subpopulations. The behaviors compared focused on initial drug use and other antecedent behaviors during the year prior to initiation of heroin use including interpersonal relationships, other substance use, drug dealing, legal income, and various criminal behaviors. Unlike men, the initial use of heroin by women was highly influenced by a man, especially by a sex partner who is often a daily heroin user. On the other hand, many women (like men) reported self-initiation of heroin use, multiple drug use, and drug dealing, thus demonstrating that they took an active role in their drug involvement. Other differences between men and women for antecedent behaviors prior to narcotics use appear to be related to traditional expectations about gender roles in American society.

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This is a report of a study designed to measure personality, attitude, value, interest, and performance changes resulting from the administration of LSD to normals. Several investigators using LSD with humans in nontherapy experiments have observed that some of their subjects report various lasting effects attributable to the drug experience. 1 -2 In addition, the recent controversy over the nonmedical use of LSD has given rise to numerous claims and counterclaims in this regard. We have previously reported on a pilot study in which tests of anxiety, attitudes, and creativity were given to 15 subjects prior to, and one week following, a single 200 microgram LSD session. Some significant changes in the anxiety and attitude tests were observed, but none were found for the creativity measures. 3 The assessment of lasting effects of hallucinogens involves extradrug variables to a greater extent than do most drug studies. We are asking, in effect, whether a dramatic drug-induced experience-one which temporarily dissolves the primacy of habitual perceptions of self image, environment, beliefs, and values-will have a lasting impact on the individual's personality. We would expect any such impact to be influenced by the person's prior personality, motivation, and expectation, and by 1. Reprinted with permission from Archives of General

No abstract

Arrest rates and self‐reported criminal behavior are examined as a function of frequency of narcatic use during the addiction careers first daily narcatic use to last daily use) of a sample of 690 admissions to the California Civil Addict Program. Thirty‐five percent of the addiction career non‐incarcerated time involved less‐than‐daily or no narcatic use. During these periods. arrest rates for property crimes and self‐reported criminal behavior were substantially lower than for periods of daily use. This approach to examining the relationship between crime and narcatic addiction avoids several of the methodological problems encountered in pre‐ and pastaddiction and pre‐ and pasttreatment studies.