Deck 6: Studying Drug Use

Question 1

Which of the following data sources results from drug-testing and interviewing a sample of arrestees?

A) ADAM-II
B) DAWN
C) MTF
D) NSDUH
E) none of the above

Answer 1

A

Question 2

MTF collects data in:

A) jails and prisons
B) school classrooms
C) hospitals and morgues
D) the households of respondents
E) none of the above

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The drug or drug type most likely to be associated with the number of emergency department visits that take place in the U.S.in recent years is:

A) methamphetamine
B) PCP
C) MDMA (Ecstasy)
D) opiates/narcotics
E) LSD

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following statements is true,as inferred from the available data?

A) Arrestees have much greater rates of illicit drug use than is true of a cross-section of the population as a whole.
B) A cross-section of the population as a whole has a much higher rate of illicit drug use than arrestees.
C) Arrestees and a cross-section of the population as a whole have roughly the same rates of illicit drug use.
D) The rates of drug use among arrestees and a cross-section of the population as a whole remain unknown and unknowable,according to researchers.
E) none of the above

Question 5

The drug of choice among-the drug most likely to be used by-arrestees is:

A) methamphetamine
B) cocaine
C) opiates
D) marijuana
E) oxycodone

Question 6

Which of the following data sources is the result of a survey conducted among a sample of households in the United States?

A) ADAM-II
B) DAWN
C) MTF
D) NSDUH
E) none of the above

Question 7

Which of the following data sources is drawn preponderantly or exclusively from surveys of 8^th,10^th,and 12^th graders,as well as college students and non-college adults?

A) ADAM-II
B) DAWN
C) MTF
D) NSDUH
E) none of the above

Question 8

An example of an inferential statistic is the following statement:

A) In 2011,22.5 million Americans said that they used one or more illicit drugs during the prior month
B) Smokers are more likely to die at 65 than non-smokers are to die at 75
C) The violent crime victimization rate in the U.S.in 2011 declined during the past decade by 30 percent
D) 20-year-olds are 30 times more likely to have taken an illicit substance in the prior month than persons 65 or older
E) none of the above

Question 9

Which of the following data sources is drawn from records of untoward drug effects,both fatal and non-fatal?

A) ADAM-II
B) DAWN
C) MTF
D) NSDUH
E) none of the above

Question 10

According to the text,which of the following data sources on drugs is so seriously flawed as to be completely worthless to researchers?

A) ADAM-II
B) DAWN
C) MTF
D) NSDUH
E) none of the above data sources is so seriously flawed as to be completely worthless to researchers

Question 11

According to the discussion in the text,most researchers feel that:

A) sampling is typically an even more important problem than lying
B) lying is an even more important problem than sampling
C) sampling and lying are equally important problems for the researcher
D) neither sampling nor lying is important than the researcher
E) none of the above

Question 12

"Inferential" statistics:

A) describe what something is like in quantitative terms
B) describe what something is like in qualitative terms
C) avoid making causal inferences among their variables
D) measure cause-and-effect relationships among two or more variables or factors in qualitative terms
E) none of the above

Question 13

Most researchers who conduct surveys:

A) select their samples in a haphazard fashion so that all the biases will cancel one another out
B) select their samples so that they do not look like or reflect the population at large
C) try to select samples so that everyone in their universe,the population at large,has an equal chance of appearing in the sample
D) select every member of the entire population-a total enumeration-so that their data will accurately reflect data about the universe they wish to generalize about
E) None of the above

Question 14

The national household survey found that during the last decade,virtually all of the increase in drug use in the population that took place was with one drug alone:

A) cocaine
B) ketamine
C) LSD
D) sedatives
E) marijuana

Question 15

When we look at drug harms-drugs that are associated with untoward,harmful effects such as hospital admissions and deaths by overdose-which of the following is on a list of the "big four" substances,those that rank high on both lists?

A) marijuana
B) PCP
C) cocaine
D) oxycodone
E) methamphetamine

Question 16

ADAM-II indicates that the use of one of the following drug in its samples is highly regionalized?

A) marijuana
B) crack
C) opiates
D) methamphetamine
E) The use of none of these drugs is highly regionalized.

Question 17

Most sociological researchers conclude about illicit,illegal,unconventional behavior such as drug use that:

A) all people lie so sociologists should ignore and dismiss their answer about it in surveys
B) research should include subjecting their respondents to a lie detector test so that they can verify what they say is true and valid
C) in order to induce respondents to tell the truth,it is necessary to give them a sum of money as an inducement
D) the researcher is likely to receive somewhat inaccurate answers in a survey,but they are approximately or relatively correct,and triangulation helps correct that
E) none of the above

Question 18

The drug or drug type that is most likely to be associated with the number of drug-related deaths is:

A) benzodiazepines,or the Valium-type sedatives
B) alcohol
C) cocaine
D) opiates
E) antidepressants,such as Prozac or Zoloft

Question 19

When drug test results were compared with self-reports on surveys of drug use,researchers found that:

A) positive testees were more likely to self-report drug use than negative testees.
B) positive testees were less likely to self-report drug use than negative testees.
C) positive and negative testees were equally as likely to self-report drug use.
D) the degree of correspondence between the results of drug tests and self-report surveys was zero-they had a random relationship with one another.
E) the degree of correspondence between the results of drug tests and self-report surveys remains unknown-and unknowable.

Question 20

Which of the following statements is true? Eating ice cream and rates of rape in an area are:

A) statistically correlated but not causally related
B) causally related but not statistically correlated
C) both statistically correlated and causally related
D) neither statistically correlated nor causally related
E) none of the above

Question 21

Each of the data sources discussed in this chapter has both strengths and limitations.What are they? Is there a single "best" data source,or does that depend on the purposes to which you wish to put the data.

Question 22

Discuss the sources available to the researcher and assess which one produces data on drug use that are most relevant to the questions the public wants answered.Which one or ones are most relevant to the policy analyst? To the criminologist?

Question 23

Judging from the available data sources,are one or more of these drugs "out of line" with their legal status,that is,legal drugs that are so dangerous that they need to be more tightly controlled,and illegal drugs that are so much less dangerous than the laws indicate,that a relaxation of the penalties seems warranted? Explain your reasoning.

Question 24

The samples of all of these data sources are huge,numbering in each case in the thousands.Would the data be as useful if their samples were smaller,say,just a few hundred? Explain why or why not.Several of these data sources are drawn exclusively from metropolitan areas,which means they do not represent-they are not a cross-section of-the American population as a whole.Does this limitation restrict their utility? Why or why not?

Question 25

If you were to present data on drug use to a legislature or legislative committee attempting to revise the drug laws,which data source or sources would you use? Why? Explain.

Question 26

Approximately one in 20 persons in the United States is arrested in a given year-clearly,an unrepresentative segment of the population.Yet drug experts use ADAM-II,a data source based exclusively on the drug testing of arrested offenders,as a means of understanding a dimension or aspect of drug use.Is this valid? What do the conclusions from ADAM-II's arrestees tell us about drug use,and what can't they tell us?

Question 27

Does the fact that marijuana is the most frequent drug that arrestees test positive for indicate that it is "criminogenic" in its impact,that is,that it causes criminal behavior? Why or why not? If alcohol had been tested for in ADAM-II,would this change the picture? Why or why not?

Question 28

If you met someone,let's say,at a party,who asked you which of the drugs currently consumed in the United States is most harmful and dangerous,which one would you pick to answer his or her question? The least dangerous or harmful? Why? Justify your answer.

Question 29

If you could design a study on drug use that would overcome whatever limitations or weaknesses that the available data sources have,what would this study entail?

Question 30

Consider the proportion of the population who,according to surveys,use opiates versus the number who die of an opiate-related overdose.Consider likewise the proportion of users of alcohol,marijuana,and cocaine relative to the contribution of these drugs to the mortality statistics.Which drugs stand out with respect to a high or low toxicity relative to the number of episodes of their use? Justify your conclusion by citing facts and figures.