With our third analytical approach we investigated whether onset of use in adolescence predicts the development of a SUD in young adulthood to the same degree for tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. Goldstein and Kalant (1990) rank ordered the relative risk of addiction of several drug categories by the “addictiveness” of each drug based on animal studies examining self-administration of substances, engagement in drug seeking behavior, and latency to relapse after enforced abstinence. The addiction liability ranking suggested that tobacco was the most addictive of the three substances, followed by alcohol, and lastly marijuana (Goldman et al., 2005; Goldstein and Kalant, 1990). Based on these findings we predicted that the magnitude of risk for a SUD in young adulthood, given adolescent onset of use, would be consistent with the addiction liability ranking. If supported, this pattern would suggest that in addition to generalized risk factors, there are also important substance-specific mechanisms that increase the risk for developing SUDs.
