“Youthful drug use violates both formal law and informal norms for conventional behaviour. Analyses of influences on permissive drug attitudes and behaviours among adolescents should, therefore, focus on both attitude towards the law and the informal normative climate of these youths. Legal attitude and norm qualities, however, can vary depending on the cultural and situational context. The authors examined the effect of legal attitude and norm qualities on drug permissiveness attitudes, as well as actual alcohol and cannabis use of 196 adolescents comprising three cultural groups: American Indian residents of a rural community, non-Indian residents of the same community, and transient Indians attending a job-training programme in the community. In general, for all three groups, legal attitude primarily affects permissiveness towards drug use, while norm qualities of peers and personal permissiveness influence actual substance use. However, the three cultural groups vary in the relative salience of these variables”.