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I love me a good longitudinal study. There has been some discussion on the site of the long term effects of illegal drugs (not alcohol) on kids, so I found this paper quite heartening. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Thomas_Crea/publication/227731529_Behavioral_Outcomes_for_Substance-Exposed_Adopted_Children_Fourteen_Years_Postadoption/links/00b4952e910d1e8d54000000/Behavioral-Outcomes-for-Substance-Exposed-Adopted-Children-Fourteen-Years-Postadoption.pdf To summarise the methodology: Postal questionnaire to 1200 adoptive parents. 14 year study. About 500 still responding after 14 years. Compared against whole population and adoption specific prior data and adjusted for other effects (e.g. FASD, age, ethnicity) Conclusions that struck me. Pretty small effect size for drug use. The effect doesn't get worse with age. Children adopted younger did better. Children adopted from foster care did better than private adoptions. I would add some obvious caveats: Sample size and methodology are good, but these are conclusions from the data, not absolute certainties. Its an American study- I wonder whether conclusion 4 would apply here. Its not possible to say why these effects occurred- those bits in the paper are hypothesis.