Taking alcohol from one's parents' home without permission as a risk factor for greater alcohol and marijuana use during the transition into college.

While adolescents and underage emerging adults typically obtain alcohol from social sources (e.g., parents, friends, parties), taking alcohol from the home without permission is not well understood. The current study investigated plausible individual characteristics associated with taking alcohol from one's parents' home without permission and associations between taking alcohol and drinking, alcohol consequences, and marijuana use. Two cohorts of alcohol-experienced underage emerging adults (N = 562) completed a web-based survey pre-college matriculation. Participants reported sources of alcohol (friend, mother, father, party, took it from home); drinking; consequences; marijuana use (ever and past 30 days); age of alcohol initiation; symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress; parental modeling of drinking; and demographic information. Results revealed that taking alcohol was significantly associated with several of the measures examined here (e.g., having obtained alcohol from friends, parents, and parties; earlier age of alcohol initiation; parental modeling of alcohol). Having taken alcohol from the home without permission and obtained it from friends were uniquely associated with increased odds of typical weekly drinking, consequences, and marijuana use in the past 30 days when controlling for all other variables assessed in this study (including drinking, in the consequences and marijuana models). Parent-based interventions targeting adolescents and emerging adults should inform parents of the risks associated with taking alcohol from the home and obtaining it from friends. Further, parents should also be informed that supplying their adolescent with alcohol or modeling drinking may increase the likelihood that they take alcohol from their home.

The Prospective Effects of Parents' and Friends' Approval of Drinking on Simultaneous Alcohol and Marijuana Use during College.

Background: Recent reports indicate that simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use is a growing health concern among college students. As SAM use consists of both alcohol and marijuana, risk factors associated with either can serve as plausible targets by prevention efforts to reduce SAM use. Objectives: To explore this, the current study investigated the direct and indirect effects of two established risk factors for drinking on SAM use: perceived parental permissiveness toward drinking and friends' approval toward drinking (injunctive norms). Method: Incoming first-year students (N = 470) reported parental permissiveness, injunctive norms, alcohol use, and SAM use at baseline (T1) and 5 months later (T2). SAM use was assessed again 15 months post-baseline (T3). Path analysis was conducted to examine whether T2 variables mediated relationships between T1 variables and T3 SAM use. Results: Results revealed that T2 student alcohol use mediated the effects of T1 parental permissiveness, injunctive norms, and alcohol use on T3 SAM use. Conclusions/Importance: Findings from this study extend research on SAM use by identifying perceived parental permissiveness and injunctive drinking norms as risk factors for SAM use through their effects on alcohol use. Based on these findings, it is plausible that parent-based interventions and interventions targeting peer injunctive norms during the first year of college could be used to effectively prevent or reduce SAM use.