Germane to addiction liability, this relocation is assisted by the relationship between parental SUD and faster pubertal maturation of their sons, and, on the other hand, between faster physiologic maturation and affiliation with deviant peers, novelty seeking, and development of conduct disorder and SUD (Kirillova et al., 2001, 2008). Both the testosterone level in boys and their affiliation with deviant peers at an earlier time point are cross-predictive of these variables’ values at a later time point, biasing development to conduct disorder and SUD, and in part mediating transmission of SUD risk from parents to children. These findings support a role of deviations in physiological maturation (perhaps mistimed with neural maturation) in the addiction risk (Tarter et al., 1999). Due to the association between earlier maturation and peer deviancy, social groupings of deviant peers (gangs) may be enriched with physiologically earlier maturing individuals, which is compounded with the peer pressure to display early “adult” behavior, including smoking, drinking and drug use. This indicates an important extension of the CLA phenotype, which may be tested and taken into account in prevention and intervention.
