Social meanings of marijuana use for Southeast Asian youth.
The paper describes findings from a pilot study of drug use and environment for Southeast Asian youths in the San Francisco Bay Area. From interviews with 31 drug-involved youths living in two low-income predominantly ethnic minority neighborhoods, smoking marijuana emerged as pervasive and highly normative. Smoking marijuana provided a means for coping with the stresses of home and community life, and located youths, moreover, within an alternative ghetto lifestyle of rap music, marijuana smoking, and youth crime, as modeled by co-resident ethnic minority peers, with which many Southeast Asian youths identified. The findings indicate the importance of the social environment as well as social status in the substance use of this group of second-generation youth.
Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 1995 University Ave #450, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA. jlee@prev.org
Juliet P
JP
Lee
Sean
S
Kirkpatrick
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001210:Asia, Southeastern / Q000208:ethnology; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008385:Marijuana Smoking / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012495:San Francisco; D012651:Self Medication; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment