MTF is a study conducted annually to examine changes in values, behaviors, and lifestyle orientations of contemporary American youth. The basic research design of MTF involves annual data collections on high school seniors in public and private high schools throughout the United States, beginning with the class of 1975. The 1985 version of the MTF contains questionnaire responses from 16,502 high school seniors in 115 public schools and 17 private schools, with a student response rate of 84 percent. Using variables derived from the social control, social learning, and strain theories of delinquency, strongest support is found for the social learning perspective, in that peer influence has the greatest effect on adolescent drug use, and the effect of parental influence on adolescent drug use is insignificant. Also, results show that the effect of peers on adolescent drug use is greatest among middle-class adolescents. Additional support is found for social control theory, in that significant class differences exist with regard to the effects of belief, commitment, religious attachment, and school attachment on adolescent drug use. Finally, results show no support for strain theory; the effects of expected college success and expected career success on adolescent drug use are insignificant. Implications for integrating the recent work in stratification with the present literature on delinquency are discussed in an effort to provide a more precise explanation of the class- delinquency relationship. 3 tables and 58 references