Influence of contextual stressors on adolescent marijuana use in a sample of African Americans living in an urban area

Despite recent evidence of higher rates of marijuana use among African Americans than Whites, limited research has examined the reasons for this racial disparity.  The purpose of this study is to examine how contextual stressors that disproportionately affect African American adolescents are related to marijuana opportunities and use in a sample of primarily low-income urban-dwelling African Americans.  Four hundred and seventy African-American children were interviewed annually beginning in first grade as part of a longitudinal field study in Baltimore city.  Latent transition analysis was conducted to examine the influence of contextual stress as measured by neighborhood disorder, community violence exposure and racial discrimination on transitions across stages of marijuana involvement in 6^th-9^th grades.  Three-stages of marijuana involvement emerged: no involvement, marijuana opportunities and use and problems.  Youth who reported witnessing or being a victim of community violence were significantly more likely to transition from no marijuana involvement to having opportunities to use marijuana (AOR=1.45; 95% CI=1.02, 2.07) and to use and problems (AOR=2.68; 95% CI=1.36, 5.27) compared to youth who did not report exposure to community violence.  Higher levels of neighborhood disorder was significantly associated with transitions from no involvement to use and problems (AOR=2.38; 95% CI=1.22, 4.63).  Youth who reported experiencing higher levels of racial discrimination were significantly more likely to transition from no marijuana involvement to having opportunities to use marijuana (AOR=2.04; 95% CI=1.41, 2.95).   These findings highlight the need to develop interventions focused on contextual factors that disproportionately affect these youth and factors that might promote resilience in these urban environments.