We can't complain that children don't know how to think and act like adults if we homogenize the way children behave...but criminologists wish you would.   If you don't, they could be drug addicts.

Defiant kids are correlated with drug dependence - they include cigarettes along with pot and cocaine, naturally - according to surveys analyzed by psychologists at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center’s (UHC) Research Center and the University of Montreal, concluded following a 15-year population-based paper published in Molecular Psychiatry.

The behavior analysis was of 1,803 children between 6 and 12 years of age were evaluated annually by their mothers and teachers, split on gender representation lines. The analysis revealed that by the age of 21, 13.4% were either abusing or addicted to alcohol, 9.1% to cannabis, and 2.0% to cocaine. 30.7 % of the participants smoked, which is around the national average but that is the nature of surveys creating correlation and causation arrows to achieve a culturally desired result.

Because it was the big fad diagnosis of the 1990s, the link between ADD/ADHD and substance abuse in adulthood was already considered settled but studies had not analyzed the particular roles of behavioral symptoms in ADD, such as defiance.

The strongest behavioral predictor of substance abuse they found lies in frequent oppositional behavior in childhood, which can be recognized through traits such as irritability, being quick to “fly off the handle,” being disobedient or stubborn and being inconsiderate of others.  Criteria like those may you wonder if airline flight attendants are the ones giving this test; they want everyone to be docile sheep with no individuality.

So keep your kids in line because the risk of tobacco use was 1.4 times higher than in children who were rated as good boys and girls by their mothers and teachers. Rebellious kids were also 2.1 times more likely to use pot and 2.9 times more likely to use cocaine. 

They also correlated inattention and smoking. Very inattentive children had a 1.7X increased risk of smoking, so get them hooked on Red Bull early. They hypothesize that inattentive people would use tobacco as a “treatment” to help them concentrate. As for the impact of gender on findings, their findings showed opposition and inattention play a largely identical role in girls and boys. However, within the context of the study, it was established that boys consumed more cannabis and alcohol, while girls smoked more cigarettes.

"If other studies can establish a chemical relation of cause and effect between ADHD symptoms and smoking, we could suppose that treating inattention symptoms would make it easier to quit smoking. Until this is demonstrated, our study’s findings nonetheless suggest that the prevention or treatment of inattention and opposition symptoms in children could reduce the risk of smoking and drug abuse in adulthood," said Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pingault, a postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study.

Citation: J-B Pingault, S M Côté, C Galéra, C Genolini, B Falissard, F Vitaro and R E Tremblay, 'Childhood trajectories of inattention, hyperactivity and oppositional behaviors and prediction of substance abuse/dependence: a 15-year longitudinal population-based study', Molecular Psychiatry June 26 2012; doi: 10.1038/mp.2012.87