The aim for this longitudinal study was to test three hypotheses concerning the effects of pubertal timing on substance use during early adolescence. The maturational deviance hypothesis posits that any deviation from the norm, that is, early maturation and late maturation, would increase the risk for substance use. The stage termination hypothesis proposes that only early maturers would show higher levels of substance use. The mediation hypothesis predicts that the relation between off-time maturation and substance use is mediated by heightened depressive symptoms. The three hypotheses were tested in a prospective design with a German sample of early adolescents. The results of the analyses supported the stage termination hypothesis rather than the maturational deviance hypothesis or the mediation hypothesis. Early maturing boys and girls reported a higher frequency of substance use within the following year than did the other participants, with the effects being more pronounced for smoking cigarettes than for drinking alcohol.
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