Drugs and thugs.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob

In 1990 Jonathan Shedler and Jack Block, two psychologists at the University of California, Berkeley, were attacked as traitors in the war on drugs after they reported that "problem drug use is a symptom, not a cause, of personal and social maladjustment." But three years later, the results of a government-funded study lend support to that conclusion.

Describing a careful longitudinal study of 101 subjects in the May 1990 issue of American Psychologist, Shedler and Block wrote: "Adolescents who had engaged in some drug experimentation were the best-adjusted in the sample. Adolescents who used drugs frequently were maladjusted, showing a distinct personality syndrome marked by interpersonal alienation, poor impulse control, and manifest emotional distress. Adolescents who, by age 18, had never experimented with any drug were relatively anxious, emotionally constricted and lacking in social skills."

These differences showed up early in childhood and seemed to be related to the way the kids were raised. Shedler and Block concluded that "the meaning of drug use can be understood only in the context of an individual's personality structure and developmental history."

That assessment now appears to be...