Kindergarten cues to teen drug use.

Boys who exhibit a cluster of extreme personality characteristics by age 6 prove far more likely than their peers to smoke cigarettes, get drunk, and use illicit drugs in the first few years of adolescence, a long-term study finds.

"These results suggest that preventive initiatives may use childhood personality dimensions, rated by kindergarten teachers, to identify children at risk for early substance use," propose Louise C. Masse of the University of Texas-Houston and Richard E. Tremblay of the University of Montreal.

The two psychologists examined the relation between personality ratings of boys at ages 6 and 10 by their teachers and the same boys' annual self-reports of substance use from ages 11 to 15. All boys came from white, French-speaking, relatively poor families in Montreal. Statistical analyses included from 656 to 784 boys, depending on the availability of responses for the various types of drug use.

Boys who displayed high novelty seeking (marked by impulsive, excitable, and exploratory behaviors) and low harm avoidance (typified by having few worries and showing little fear or apprehension of new things or situations) were much more likely to use cigarettes, alcohol, and other drugs in their early teens. Most of the youngsters described by this apparently risky personality profile at age 6 were also in that category at age 10, the scientists report in the January Archives of General Psychiatry.

To the researchers' surprise, low reward dependence-characterized by emotional aloofness and a lack of concern for others-did not contribute to a propensity for teenage drug use. Further research will address whether this personality measure helps to identify boys likely to become chronic drug users after early teenage exposures, Masse and Tremblay say.

Such follow-up investigations are particularly important, they add, because not all kindergarten boys tagged as high in novelty-seeking and low in harm avoidance become teenage drug users, and some of those who do take drugs decide to quit the practice after a few months or years.