The purpose of this study was to examine the conditions of drug use and the find the main factors that lead students to start and select drugs in their circumstances. The "other drugs" in this study means analgesics, hypnotics, stimulants, tranqualizers, and drinks including caffeine. The sample was 1,900 students and 1,412 responses were analyzed. Variables in the study included prescription provision by parents, drug use by friends, attitudes to drugs, drinking and smoking activities, and poly drug use. Analysis of the data was done using descriptive statistics, chi square, and to find the determinants on other drug use, multiple logistic regression was performed. Data were analysed by SAS/PC programs. Of the subjects 86.6% of the students have had experienced with alcohol and 49.8% of them continue to use it, and 37.9% of the students have had experienced with smoking and 22.1% of them continue to smoke. The rates of using other drugs were as followed; analgesic 33.3%, hypnotics 4.3%, sedatives 4.4%, stimulants 8.7%, and 242 students have had experienced with more than two different kinds of drugs of the same time including alcohol and smoking. With the exception of alcohol and smoking, 126 students were continuing to use more than two different kinds of drugs. And 2.3 kinds of drugs were the average that the being used at the same time by poly drug users, alcohol and smoking excepting. In conclusion, the determinants of other drug use can be summarized as ploy drug use, drug use by friends, obedience to drug prescription of parents, and time of first using drugs.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Drug abuse is one of the most serious problems among the Korean adolescents today and has been associated with delinquent behavior in adolescents. The number of adolescents who abuse drugs is increasing yearly. Solutions to the problem, however, have not been well developed. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a drug use prevention program which was developed by researchers. The program was a modified DARE(Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program for Korean adolescents. MEHTODS: This study used an experimental, one-group pretest-posttest design with a convenience sample of 122 middle school students who were at one middle school located in Seoul. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire where 'knowledge and attitude about drug use', 'social skill', and 'self-esteem' were measured. The program had 12 sessions to improve knowledge and attitudes towards drugs, decision making skills, social resistance skills, management of stress and self-esteem of students. Teaching strategies for each session were varied : lectures, group discussion, role-playing, question-and-answer sessions and audiovisual materials. Paired t-test was used to analyze the differences between the pre- and post-test scores on knowledge of and attitudes towards drug use, social skills, and self-esteem. RESULTS: There were significant differences in knowledge and attitudes about drug use between pretest and post-test(p<.05), but no significant differences in social skill and self-esteem(p>.05). CONCLUSION: Our results showed that the drug use prevention program was not effective in promoting social-skill and self-esteem of Korean adolescents. These findings might be due to the respondents being in the period of early adolescence(puberty) and not being good at group discussion. So, further study is needed to develop a drug use prevention program appropriate to students 9 and 10 years old, and to encourage small group discussion.