查看文章

BACKGROUND: Early substance use (SU) in adolescence is known to be associated with an elevated risk of developing substance use disorders (SUD); it remains unclear though whether early SU is associated with more rapid transitions to SUD. OBJECTIVE: To examine the risk and speed of transition from first SU (alcohol, nicotine, cannabis) to SUD as a function of age of first use. METHODS: N=3021 community subjects aged 14–24 years at baseline were followed-up prospectively over 10-years. SU and SUD were assessed using the DSM-IV/M-CIDI. RESULTS: (1) The conditional probability of substance-specific SU-SUD transition was the greatest for nicotine (36.0%) and the least for cannabis (18.3% for abuse, 6.2% for dependence) with alcohol in between (25.3% for abuse; 11.2% for dependence). (2) In addition to confirming early SU as a risk factor for SUD we find: (3) higher age of onset of any SU to be …