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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Nov 30.
Published in final edited form as: Addict Behav. 2018 Sep 1;89:236–239. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.08.038

Resilience against marijuana use initiation in low-income African American youth

Wendy Kliewer 1,*, Brittani Parham 1
PMCID: PMC7703834  NIHMSID: NIHMS1647117  PMID: 30336445

Abstract

Introduction:

Recent increases in marijuana use among adolescents, in concert with decreases in perceptions of harm caused by marijuana use, documented associations of marijuana use with health problems and academic disengagement, and the increase in cannabis potency over the past two decades highlight the need for effective prevention and intervention efforts to delay and/or curb marijuana use among adolescents. The present study investigated the role of four promotive factors in the role of abstinence from marijuana use initiation.

Methods:

Low-income, urban, African American youth (N = 302; 54.6% female; M age = 12.05 years, SD = 1.57 years, Range = 10 to 16) participating in a larger study of stress and coping who had not initiated marijuana use at baseline were included in the sample. Goal directedness, emotion regulation, perceived support from mother, and religious coping, assessed at baseline, were evaluated for their contributions to marijuana use initiation two years later.”

Results:

By time 3, 14.7% of the sample reported having initiated marijuana use. Univariate analyses indicated that abstainers were younger, better able to regulate their emotions, and marginally more likely to use religious coping. Logistic regression analysis was used to develop a best-fitting model describing abstinence from marijuana use; this model revealed age and emotion regulation as unique contributors to abstinence.

Conclusions:

Emotion regulation is a teachable skill, and is included in many school-based prevention and parenting programs. Recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of self-regulation interventions in African American youth are discussed.

Keywords: Adolescents, Marijuana, Initiation, Promotive factors, Emotion regulation

1. Introduction

Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit substance worldwide (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2017). Recent increases in marijuana use among high school (Johnston et al., 2018), and college (Miech, Patrick, O’Malley, & Johnston, 2017) students; and declines in perception of harm caused by marijuana among high school (Johnston et al., 2018) and college (Schulenberg et al., 2017) students have heightened concerns about this drug. Further, the significant negative health effects associated with marijuana use (Volkow, Baler, Compton, & Weiss, 2014); the documented associations of marijuana use during college with skipping classes, lowered grade point averages, discontinuous enrollment, and delayed time to graduation (Arria et al., 2013; Arria, Caldeira, Bugbee, Vincent, & O’Grady, 2015); and the significant and a steady increase in cannabis potency over the past three decades (Elsohly et al., 2000, 2016; Elsohly, Holley, Lewis, Russell, & Turner, 1984) all point to the need for effective prevention and intervention efforts to delay and/or curb marijuana use among adolescents.

The present study focused on a population less often studied - low-income African American adolescents. When socioeconomic status (SES) has been examined in the absence of race as a risk factor for substance use, the literature has been equivocal, with early studies indicating that low SES heightened risk for substance use but later studies finding the obverse. When race was considered in concert with SES, Humensky (2010) found that high SES was a risk factor for Whites only. When examined in isolation, race predicts drug use, with African American adolescents reporting lower rates of illicit drug use than White youth. However, in recent years this gap has narrowed, and the latest Monitoring the Future Study shows that in 2017 marijuana use was significantly higher among African American compared to White students in the 8th and 10th grades (Johnston et al., 2018). Given the dearth of information about the substance use patterns of low-income African American adolescents, understanding factors within this population associated with initiation of marijuana use is important.

Within this context we focused on promotive factors - characteristics that are associated with a lower likelihood of problematic outcomes and greater likelihood of positive outcomes (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). Promotive factors have received less empirical attention relative to risk factors. Promotive factors linked to a lower likelihood of marijuana use among African American youth include feeling emotionally supported by parents (Goldstick et al., 2018); being goal-directed, such as having educational aspirations (Kirk, Lewis, Lee, & Stowell, 2011); and religiosity, defined as “an individual’s beliefs and behaviors in relation to the supernatural and/or high intensity values” (Roof, 1979, p. 18)(Nasim, Utsey, Corona, & Belgrave, 2006; Steinman & Zimmerman, 2004). Research using multi-ethnic samples that included African American youth has shown that good emotional self-control or regulation, measured with scales tapping soothability and anger and sadness control, was associated with less marijuana use among middle and high school students (Wills, Walker, Mendoza, & Ainette, 2006). Importantly, poor emotion regulation, as a component of self-regulation, is now widely understood as a risk factor for substance use and dependence (Dishion & Connell, 2006). Based on prior literature we consider the roles of parental social support, goal-directedness, religious coping, and emotion regulation in marijuana use initiation.

We examined initiation of marijuana use over an important two-year period: the transition to either middle school or high school. The transition into high school, in particular, represents a major transition point for marijuana use initiation. Reboussin, Ialongo, and Green (2015) found that the move to high school was associated with marked increases in offers of marijuana without prior involvements, especially among youth with externalizing behavior.

The present study extends prior work in several ways. First, we consider substance use initiation, rather than frequency of use or problematic use. Second, we evaluate initiation of marijuana use. In 2017 0.8% of eighth grade students consumed marijuana daily as opposed to 0.2% of students who were daily alcohol users (Johnston et al., 2018). Third, consistent with a growing focus on positive youth development, we examine promotive factors associated with lack of substance use initiation.

2. Method

2.1. Participants and procedures

Participants included African American adolescents (N = 302; 54.6% female; M age at baseline = 12.05, SD = 1.05 years) and their female caregivers who participated in the first three waves of a longitudinal study of stress and substance use and who indicated at baseline that they had not initiated marijuana use. The majority of the caregivers (85.2%) were the child’s biological mother, but grandmothers (7.9%), adopted mothers (2.3%), stepmothers (0.7%) and other female relatives (3.9%) were represented in the sample. Overall the sample was low-income, with a median household income of $301–400/week at baseline. Likewise, parental education was low, although there was some diversity in the sample. About a fifth (22.7%) of the caregivers did not graduate high school; 32.3% graduated high school or completed a General Education Diploma (GED); another quarter (23.7%) completed some college but no degree; 13.0% earned an Associate’s or Vocational degree, and 8.3% earned a Bachelor’s degree or higher. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Virginia Commonwealth University. Caregivers provided written consent for their own and their child’s participation and adolescents provided written and verbal assent prior to any data collection activities. Data collection began in late December 2004 and concluded the end of June 2008. Additional details on the study procedures may be found in Kliewer (2016).

2.2. Assessment of demographics and marijuana use

Caregiver education, relation to the adolescent, household income, and adolescent age was reported by the caregiver. Marijuana use was reported by adolescents at baseline, time 2 and time 3 using the Personal Experience Inventory (PEI; Winters & Henly, 1989). The PEI is a self-report measure that documents the onset, nature, degree, and duration of chemical involvement in 12- to 18-year-olds and identifies personal risk factors that may precipitate or sustain substance abuse. Screening questions on the PEI assess lifetime use of drugs and alcohol. Additionally, one item on the PEI asks participants how frequently they have used “marijuana (grass, pot) or hashish (hash, hash oil)” in the past 12 months. Response options range from never to 40 or more times. A comparison of responses across baseline and subsequent waves was used to identify adolescents who initiated marijuana use post baseline.

2.3. Assessment of promotive factors

Promotive factors were self-reported by youth, assessed at baseline and included: (a) social support from mother, assessed with an 8-item version of The Network of Relationships Inventory - Revised (NRI-R; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985). A sample item is “How much can you count on mom to be there when you need her no matter what?” Response options ranged from (1) little or none to (5) the most possible. Cronbach alpha in the current study was 0.81; (b) emotion regulation, assessed with 8 regulation items from the Children’s Emotion Management Scales (Zeman, Shipman, & Suveg, 2002). A sample item is “When I am feeling mad, I control my temper.” Response options ranged from (1) hardly ever to (3) often. Cronbach alpha in the current study was 0.72; (c) goal directedness was assessed with 5 items from the goal directed subscale of the Personal Experience Inventory (PEI; Winters & Henly, 1989). A sample item is “I am working toward some important goals in my life.” Response options ranged from (1) strongly disagree to (4) strongly agree. Items were coded so that higher scores reflected higher levels of goal directedness. Cronbach alpha in the current study was 0.73. (d) religious coping, assessed with a youth-reported 6-item subscale from the Children’s Coping Strategies Checklist (CCSC; Program for Prevention Research, 1999). A sample item is “Ask God to help you solve the problem.” Response options ranged from (1) didn’t do this at all to (4) did this a lot. Cronbach alpha in the current study was 0.91.

3. Results

3.1. Attrition analyses

In the two-year period between baseline and time 3, 23.8% of the sample attrited. Participants who attrited versus those who remained in the study were compared on sex, age, and the four promotive factors at baseline using t-tests and chi-squares. There were no significant differences between participants who remained in the study and those who attrited on any variable, ps > 0.10.

3.2. Descriptive analyses

Chi square analyses indicated that the proportion of youth who initiated marijuana use did not differ by sex, X2 (1) = 1.80, p = .20, with 17.6% of females and 11.3% of males initiating use in the transition between waves. Correlations among the promotive factors and age, and descriptive information on the study variables is presented in Table 1. Univariate analyses comparing adolescents who did and did not initiate marijuana use by time 3 on age and promotive factors is presented in Table 2. Abstainers were younger, better able to regulate their emotions, and marginally more likely to use religious coping in these analyses.

Table 1.

Correlations among and Descriptive Information on promotive factors in the study.

Maternal support Emotion regulation Goal directedness Religious coping Adolescent age
Maternal support 0.20*** 0.19*** 0.18** −0.11
Emotion regulation 0.17** 0.04 −0.03
Goal directedness 0.07 0.16**
Religious coping −0.20***
M 28.28 17.07 17.24 18.10
SD 5.32 3.14 2.72 5.07
Range 7–35 10–24 5–20 6–24
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**

p < .01.

***

p < .001.

Table 2.

Univariate analyses comparing adolescent age and promotive factors on marijuana initiation status at time 3.

Measure Initiated marijuana use (N = 34) Did not initiate marijuana use (N = 197) df t p
M SD M SD
Adolescent age 13.24 1.23 11.77 1.50 229 6.20 <0.001
Maternal support 27.45 5.76 28.53 5.34 228 1.08 0.28
Emotion regulation 16.09 2.25 17.23 3.29 227 2.52 0.01
Goal directedness 17.15 2.52 17.23 2.77 227 0.15 0.88
Religious coping 16.76 4.89 18.53 5.02 229 1.90 0.06
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3.3. Logistic regression predicting marijuana use initiation from promotive factors

In order to develop a best-fitting model predicting abstinence from marijuana use initiation, we utilized a backwards elimination procedure. Adolescent age and sex and the four promotive factors were entered initially, then removed if they did not contribute significant variation to the outcome. The final model correctly predicted 85.4% of the cases and included age (B = 0.66, SE = 0.14, OR = 1.93, p < .001) and emotion regulation (B = −0.14, SE = 0.07, OR = 0.87, p = .04).

4. Discussion

The present study contributes to the literature by identifying the ability to regulate anger and sadness as a unique, modifiable promotive factor associated with abstinence from marijuana use initiation among low-income African American adolescents. Given that stress is a major contributor to both initiation and ongoing drug use - a study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America indicated that 73% of teens cited school stress as the primary reason for using drugs (Partnership for a Drug Free America, 2008), and that stress erodes the ability to self-regulate (Hamoudi, Murray, Sorensen, & Fontaine, 2015), attention both to reducing adolescents’ stress levels and enhancing their ability to regulate emotions may aid in delaying drug use or reducing levels of use.

Strengths of this study include the longitudinal design, use of an understudied sample, the focus on marijuana use initiation, and examination of promotive factors. Study limitations include a higher than desired attrition rate across the three study timepoints, although our analysis indicated that there were no differences on initiation by attrition status.

In terms of application, a recent report outlined a comprehensive intervention approach to strengthen self-regulation in the most vulnerable populations (Murray, Rosanbalm, & Christopoulos, 2015). As noted in the report, there are a number of self-regulation interventions, with the majority of interventions targeting middle and high school students being school-based, and approximately 40% focusing on vulnerable youth, many of whom were minorities (35% of the middle school and 45% of the high school interventions included African American students). However, the results of these interventions were highly variable. Thus, there is a need for high-quality research that implements self-regulation interventions in a way that is evidence-based, comprehensive, and culturally acceptable. Murray et al. (2015) suggest that ways to enhance the effectiveness of these interventions include:

  • Provide a more intentional and targeted focus on self-regulation, where cognitive and emotional regulation skills and their integration are systematically taught.

  • Increase the focus on developing emotion regulation skills during adolescence.

  • Provide support for caregivers’ own self-regulation so that they can meet the self-regulation needs of vulnerable children and youth.

  • Teach caregivers (e.g., parents, teachers, mentors, or program staff) of children and youth of all ages to model, coach, reinforce, and support self-regulation skill development within the context of a warm and responsive relationship and positive behavior support skills. We call this process “co-regulation” training. (Murray et al., 2015, p. 4).

In addition to the real potential to impact substance use, adopting Murray et al.’s recommendations has the additional advantage of focusing on enhancing assets, which is intrinsically appealing to stake-holders such as students, parents, and school personnel.

HIGHLIGHTS.

  • Given the rising potency of marijuana, delaying or curbing teen use is important.

  • Marijuana use among Black youth is catching up to that of White youth.

  • Promotive factors are critical components of substance use prevention programs.

  • Emotion regulation predicted abstinence from marijuana use initiation in Black youth.

  • Emotion regulation is teachable, and already a component of many prevention programs.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the many students and staff members who worked on Project COPE as well as the families who shared their lives with us over the course of the study.

Role of funding sources

Funding for this study was provided by NIDA Grants K01 DA015442 01A1 and R21 DA 020086-02. NIDA has no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Footnotes

Conflict of interest

Both authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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