The protective role of valuing cultural activities on cannabis use in reserve-Dwelling First Nation youth

Abstract

Cannabis legalization and use across North America disproportionately negatively affects North American Indigenous (NAI) youth. Cultural activities may function as an alternative reinforcer to protect against substance use and promote engagement in substance-free activities. The present study explored the role of valuing cultural activities on positive cannabis expectancies and past-month cannabis use. This was a secondary data analysis of data from one NAI adolescent population reporting any past-month cannabis use. 106 NAI adolescents (50% female) from a Canadian reserve community completed surveys in spring 2017. The Institutional Review Board, tribal chief, and council approved this study and informed consent, assent, and parental permission were obtained from participants. Linear regression results revealed significant main effects of positive cannabis expectancies (b = 2.926, SE = 1.198, p = .017, 95%CI[0.542, 5.309]) and valuing cultural activities (b= −0.471,SE = 0.234, p=.048, 95%CI[−0.937, −0.005]) on cannabis use, but no significant interaction between cannabis expectancies and valuing cultural activities. Previous research found valuing cultural activities significantly moderates the relationship between positive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use. Divergent findings may relate to the different historical significance of alcohol versus cannabis. Alcohol was used as a method to colonize NAIs. Thus, our non-significant interaction may result from cannabis not holding the same historical significance in comparison to alcohol for First Nation people, although this is only a hypothesis and should be confirmed with a follow up study. Despite this, calls from Indigenous communities emphasize the need for strength-based approaches and our results indicate that valuing culture is still significantly related to reduced cannabis use, independent of cannabis expectancies.

Keywords:

• NAI youth
• cultural activities
• cannabis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of the research, due to ethical reasons, supporting data is not available.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant K08DA029094. Work on this paper by the second author was supported by NIDA grant F31DA053754 and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant R25AA028464.