Precursors to heroin: a pilot study of young heroin addicts and their nonaddicted friends.

To determine whether differences in life styles and patterns of drug use may help to account for willingness to try heroin and/or likelihood of becoming addicted, personal history interviews were conducted with 15 young heroin addict, 15 experimenters who used the drug but did not become addicts, and 15 nonusers who never tried heroin altough they wre exposed to it. The findings suggest that willingness to try heroin can be better understood within the context of a broader involvement in a deviant way of life. Unlike their nonuser peers, addict and experimenter subjects tended to have identified with deviant rather than conventional role models. Prior to first heroin use, most of them were heavily involved in multiple drug use and other illegal activities. Addicts and experimenters knew that one does not become addicted after trying heroin only once, and many believed they had enough "will power" to avoid a heroin habit.