‘If drugs does that to you, then I don't want it.’ Resiliency among non-marijuana using adolescents

ABSTRACT

The current study utilizes an asset-based approach to examine inner-city African-American and Latino adolescent non-marijuana use. Interview findings suggest that the common theme in adolescent narratives is why they avoid marijuana use. Specifically, adolescents formulate several reasons situated in their perceptions of self, peers, and parents to avoid marijuana use. Drawing on resiliency theory and to broaden our scope of inquiry, we utilize these findings to further delve into the relationship between perceptions of self, peer communication, parental monitoring, and marijuana use avoidance utilizing survey data analysis. Findings can be used to leverage prevention programs with this population.

KEYWORDS:

• Drugs
• ethnicity
• resiliency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although Camden County rates include adolescents living in Camden City, there are no sources that report marijuana use counts or rates among adolescents living in Camden City.

2. Although adolescents were questioned specifically about marijuana during the interviews, they often discussed marijuana and illicit drugs interchangeably. For example, many of them provided the side effects of stimulant drug use when questioned specifically about the consequences of marijuana use.

3. Researchers should use reflexivity when examining how the research process structures the interview (Lopez, Jurik, and Gilliard-Matthews 2009; Presser 2005).

4. Because the two phases occurred one year apart, it is possible that a small number of interview participants also completed the surveys.

5. We can only speculate that the difference in prevalence of non-marijuana use between interview and survey participants is attributable to the data collection method (interviews versus surveys). However, the difference in mean age between the two samples can also be a contributing factor since interview participants were slightly younger than survey participants.