Substance Use among Police Cadets: The Role of Normative Misperceptions

Abstract

Young adults tend to overestimate their peers' substance use habits. We explored whether actual substance use and estimates of usage of others differ among Finnish police students. The eligible respondents were all policing students in Finland in 2009. The prevalence of weekly drunkenness was 8% among male and 1% among female policing students, while the corresponding rates among other polytechnic students in Finland were 26% (male) and 14% (female). Weekly drunkenness was believed to be the norm by 20% of the policing students. The same misperceptions were noted in relation to smoking and drug use. Thus, students greatly overestimated their peers' substance use patterns. A trend towards estimating others' use more realistically when the students got older and had studied longer was noted. Although policing students have an exaggerated picture of the substance use patterns of their peers, their own patterns remain the same or become less severe during studies.

Cops and drugs: Illicit drug abuse by police personnel

“…The reserchers noted that police students did indeed overestimate the legal substance use (alcohol, smoking) patterns of their peers, but probably does not apply to drug use. Thus the true prevalence rate of recreational drug use may be higher than reported here (Lintonen et al, 2012).…”