ABSTRACT In this paper, we examined whether adolescent marijuana use is related to progression to other drug use in adulthood. Propensity score matching was used to estimate the relationship between marijuana initiation before age 18 and adult drug use with a sample of South Korean inmates. One hundred and one pairs were matched based on 17 covariates that represent individual, family, school, and social aspects of the sample. We found that youth who used marijuana were at a higher risk of progressing to use opiates, hallucinogens, and stimulants in adulthood as compared to those who did not use marijuana before age 18 or began at a later age. No relationship was found with crack/cocaine. Our findings indicate that early use of marijuana may increase the risks for escalation to other drug use in adulthood and provide guidance to educate youth, parents, and communities about the risk of early access to marijuana.

中文翻译：

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韩国囚犯从青少年吸食大麻到吸毒的进展：倾向评分匹配技术

摘要 在本文中，我们研究了青少年吸食大麻是否与成年后发展为其他吸毒有关。倾向评分匹配被用来估计 18 岁之前吸食大麻与成人吸毒之间的关系，并以韩国囚犯为样本。基于代表样本的个人、家庭、学校和社会方面的 17 个协变量匹配了 101 对。我们发现，与那些在 18 岁之前未使用大麻或在较晚年龄开始使用大麻的青少年相比，使用大麻的青少年在成年后使用阿片类药物、致幻剂和兴奋剂的风险更高。没有发现与快克/可卡因的关系。我们的研究结果表明，早期使用大麻可能会增加成年后升级为其他药物使用的风险，并为教育青年提供指导，