Multiple drug use. Epidemiology, correlates, and consequences.

The initial focus is on the conceptual issues essential to the understanding of multiple drug use. This is followed by a discussion of the developmental nature of multiple drug use and the various strategies that have been designed to measure multiple use. The third section of the paper contains a review of the extent of multiple drug use in various segments of society with data from the Monitoring-the-Future surveys of high school seniors, the National Survey on Drug Abuse, and the Treatment Outcome Prospective Study of drug abuse treatment clients. The conclusion is that multiple drug use is pervasive. The next section deals with several consequences associated with multiple drug use: automobile accidents, delinquency, and emergency room visits. The final section outlines some of the prevention and treatment implications of multiple drug use from a public policy perspective.