The communicative process of drug resistance among high school students.

This article reports the results of the second of two studies designed to examine social influences on adolescents' responses to drug offers. In the first study, a typology of both drug offers and drug resistance strategies was developed. The present study provides an analysis of the associations between offers and resistance and the differences between drug and alcohol offers. To accomplish this, sixty-nine narrative accounts of both successful and unsuccessful attempts to say no were collected from high school students. Analysis of the interviews indicated that peer pressure was applied in approximately 70% of the offers; however, much of that pressure was applied after the initial offer had been refused. It also was determined that simple offers were more likely with alcohol, while drug offers were more likely to be persuasive and involve pressure during the initial offer.

Resistance to drug offers among college students.

This study investigated the social context of drug offers among college students. The communicative processes involved in drug offers and resistance were examined along with drug use history, gender, family income, relationship to offerer, and location of offer. The prevailing pattern was of simple offers followed by simple statements of no, with no continuing pressure by the offerer. However, some form of pressure was reported in almost half of the cases and most frequently resulted from resisting through statements of dislike for product or lack of desire. The least amount of pressure was associated with marijuana offers.