Description:

We have reported results from an extensive search for evidence that drug use has negative consequences for academic performance and for progress toward acquiring clear occupational goals. Perhaps the simplest way to summarize our findings is to say that they are comparable to the findings one would expect from a similar search for adverse effects of alcohol: For most users, there was no evidence that the generally moderate patterns of drug use prevailing in this kind of setting have any negative consequences that are independent of other prior characteristics of users compared with nonusers. Among two small subgroups of continuing multi-drug users, however, we did find some evidence of adverse outcomes that could not be explained in terms of other prior characteristics. The possibility that drug use had some causal influence on these outcomes could not be ruled out.