Contextual risks linking parents' adolescent marijuana use to offspring onset

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Development
• Substance Use Research
• Family Studies

Background:

• Parental substance use is a known risk factor for offspring substance use.
• The specific pathways through which adolescent parental marijuana use influences offspring marijuana onset require further elucidation.
• Understanding the interplay of family and peer factors is crucial for prevention strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between parent marijuana use in adolescence and offspring marijuana use onset.
• To examine the mediating roles of family and peer risk factors in this association.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal study involving fathers (assessed since childhood), their offspring, and offspring's mothers.
• Discrete-time survival analysis to predict offspring marijuana use onset through age 19.
• Measurement of parental monitoring, child exposure to marijuana, peer deviance, peer marijuana use, and perceived parental disapproval.

Main Results:

• Parental adolescent marijuana use was linked to lower parental monitoring, increased offspring alcohol use, and greater exposure to deviant peers and marijuana use.
• Offspring marijuana use onset was predicted by male gender, peer behaviors, and parental adolescent marijuana use.
• A significant indirect effect of parental adolescent marijuana use on offspring onset was found through deviant peer affiliations and a composite risk score.

Conclusions:

• Parental adolescent marijuana use indirectly increases offspring risk for marijuana onset by influencing social environments.
• Factors such as permissive norms, exposure to marijuana use, deviant peers, and reduced supervision mediate this risk.
• These contextual factors confer unique risk for adolescent marijuana use onset, independent of alcohol use onset.