Period, age, and cohort effects on substance use among American youth aged 18 to 28 from the high school classes of 1976 to 1986 are differentiated using a cohort-sequential design based on annual surveys of nationally representative samples of high school seniors and follow-ups. Twelve licit and illicit drugs are examined. Period effects appear for alcohol use (monthly and heavy occasions), marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, methaqualone, barbiturates, LSD, other psychedelics, and tranquilizers. Age effects are found for heavy drinking, cigarette smoking, monthly and daily alcohol use, and annual prevalence of cocaine, amphetamines, barbiturates, LSD, and narcotics other than heroin. Class effects are seen for cigarette smoking and daily marijuana use.
A medical anthropologist and licensed psychotherapist draws on a database of 700 Latino immigrant families she has treated to show that psychotherapeutic interventions can be derived from shamanic roots in the immigrants' original cultures. Congruences may exist between shamanic techniques from coastal and Amazonian Peru and three Western psychotherapy techniques: hypnosis, behavior modification, and cognitive restructuring. By using historic links with Hispanic culture and these techniques, psychotherapists can acquire cultural competence to effectively reduce mental illness symptoms in US Latino immigrants in clinical practice.
In a 2022 nationally representative US survey of 15,800 adults, 20.9% reported using two or more drugs in the past year. Four distinct patterns emerged: medically guided use (11.5% of adults, 6.1% with substance use disorder), principal cannabis use (4.0%, 31.9% with disorder), self-guided nonmedical use (3.4%, 14.5% with disorder), and indiscriminate coexposures (2.1%, 58.9% with disorder). The findings reveal two previously unrecognized classes and indicate that many adults with polysubstance use have untreated substance use disorders. Prevention and treatment should be personalized to each person's specific drug-use profile.