A Survey of Attitudes Toward Drug Addiction.

The purpose of this survey was to assess public attitudes about drug addiction, addicts, and treatment for this condition. Four reference groups were sampled: (1) law-enforcement representatives; (2) college student non-users; (3) student users of marihuana; and (4) post-withdrawal narcotic addicts. Data was obtained from a questionnaire consisting of 35 bipolar descriptive statements, to which subjects were to assign a rating from one to five, indicating their agreement, neutrality or non-agreement with each of the statements. An additional 11 items assessed the potential helpfulness of different classes of people to the drug addict. Responses to the 35 descriptive items and to the 11 helpfulness ratings were submitted to principal component factor analyses. Four were extracted from the descriptive statements: (1) social rejection; (2) psychological intervention; (3) threatening, harmful; and (4) nonpunitive reaction. Likewise, four were extracted from the helpfulness ratings: (1) semi-professionals; (2) mental health professionals; (3) adjunct professionals; and (4) family and friends. Results are presented. A concluding discussion elaborates the findings and attempts some minimal interpretation of them. (TL)