The existing research on drug selling among teenagers is limited. A few research teams have studied aspects of adolescent drug dealing. The scope of research includes economic factors relaed to youths involved in drug gangs (Levitt & Venkatesh, 2000) as well as psychosocial factors that might prompt teenagers to sell drugs (Fagan J, 1990; Little & Steinberg, 2006). Few have thought about adolescent drug selling from an epidemiological perspective, with a conceptualization based on agent-host-environment triad models, and with attention to potential public health control methods required for effective interventions.An early contributor, Isidore Chein and his research team (1964) launched important psychosocial research on youthful drug selling. According to that research, adolescents involved in heroin use often conducted drug dealing. However, the samples were limited to male adolescents in New York City, and the data collection period was from 1949 to 1955. This doctoral dissertation research project builds upon progress made by Chein and his colleagues. It summarizes a set of studies of youthful drug selling that merit attention. The project then aims to contribute new epidemiological findings on adolescents selling internationally regulated drugs (IRD) such as cannabis and cocaine. From an epidemiologist’s point of view, a drug seller can be considered a vector in the person-to-person spread of drug involvement. For this reason, a comprehensive view of the epidemiology of drug involvement should not neglect drug selling. For this dissertation research project, I conducted four investigations with focus on the drug onset and drug selling experiences of 12-to-17-year-old adolescents in the United States community populations. The first investigation aims to estimate the age-specific prevalence of recent drug selling behaviors for the age period of 12 to 17 years, with attention to the following subgroups that Salas-Wright and colleagues (2017) recently identified as having a higher prevalence of drug selling in the non-institutionalized U.S. population: (a) males and (b) older adolescents. The second study aims to produce estimates concerning birth cohort variations in drug selling prevalence. The third study divides youths into three groups: “never used any IRD” group, “cannabis only at first IRD use” group, and “used a non-cannabis IRD with or without concurrent cannabis use at first IRD use” group. The investigation then turns to an estimation of the likelihood of being a seller of drugs in the past 12 months for each of these three groups, with attention to the duration of IRD use, The fourth study aims to compare non-users and users whose first drug is cannabis with respect to their odds of selling drugs in the second year after first drug use. The population under study was sampled for annual United States National Surveys of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The NSDUH sampled, recruited, and assessed non-institutionalized US civilian residents aged 12 and above each year. After Institutional Review Board-approved consent procedures, all participants were assessed using confidential audio computer-assisted self-interviews. There are cannabis and youth experience modules and modules on other drugs and health topics in the self-interview sessions. The findings of all the four studies in this dissertation are from statistical analyses of NSDUH public-use data files based on the survey questions in the aforementioned modules. The main findings and implications, summarized across the four research projects, are as follows: • Study 1: The estimated prevalence of drug selling increases with age during the adolescent years under study. The estimated prevalence for boys is larger than the corresponding estimates for girls. • Study 2: Estimated age-specific prevalence patterns do not vary appreciably across recent birth cohorts. The general pattern is one of cohort-specific increases in the odds of drug-selling from age 12 to age 17; estimates of 17-year olds are larger. • Study 3: Starting to use cannabis and no other IRD is associated with greater odds of drug selling in the subsequent adolescent years. The study estimates suggest that as time passes since first IRD use, the odds of drug selling increase (up to a point). If the first IRD use is not cannabis, then the estimated odds of drug selling may be larger than if cannabis is the only IRD that has been used. • Study 4: Adolescents who start to use cannabis but none of the other internationally regulated drugs are observed to be more likely to sell drugs in the second year after the first use, compared to adolescents who have never used any drug. Subject to limitations described in this dissertation report, these findings merit further investigation and attention in public health initiatives to prevent the person-to-person spread of drug use during adolescence. The dissertation research report also describes some future research directions that can build upon this project’s findings, which include future longitudinal and prospective investigations.
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