Parental Influences on Adolescent Marijuana Use and the Baby Boom Generation

CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION

Several findings are noteworthy. The most important is the relatively small size of the univariate effects of parental marijuana use on the child's marijuana use. The average unadjusted odds ratios of the association between child and parental marijuana use were 1.6-1.7. Odds ratios adjusted for parent and child sociodemographics increased to 2.8. Lifetime and last year marijuana use of the older children 18 to 25 years old tended to be as highly and in some cases more highly associated with parental last year marijuana use than did use by younger children 12 to 17 years old. Most of the parental effects appeared to be those of lifetime use, and did not depend either on recency or extensiveness of use. The lack of variation suggests that the influence of parental marijuana use on children's use does not result primarily from role modeling of the parent by the child. There were no statistically significant differences in parental effects between mothers and fathers, and sons and daughters.

The hypothesis regarding the impact of parental membership in the baby boom generation on offspring marijuana use was not confirmed. There was no systematic effect of membership in the baby boom generation on children's marijuana use. Although there were differences in patterns of influence within the baby boom cohorts, the cohorts who experienced the highest levels of exposure to the marijuana epidemic had the lowest levels of influence on their children. Pre-baby boomers were similar to the oldest baby boom cohorts.

It is important to keep in mind that the conclusions of this report are affected to some extent by the fact that known important predictors of adolescent marijuana use, particularly peer drug use, could not be taken into account in the analysis.

The most important findings are summarized below.

• Parental membership in the baby boom generation (1946-1964 birth cohorts) did not account for the differential rates of children's marijuana use.

• Lifetime marijuana use rates among parents of youths and young adults approximately doubled from 1979 to 1994, reflecting the increasing dominance of the baby boom cohort among parents. However, most of this increase occurred during the 1980's, a period in which youth and young adult drug use rates were declining.

• During the period of rapid increase in youth marijuana use (1992 to 1995), the percent of parents who were baby boomers or who had ever used marijuana did not change enough to have been a major factor in the youth increase.

• Parental lifetime and last year marijuana use increased the risk that a child would ever use marijuana. Controlling for parent and child sociodemographic characteristics, the children of parents who ever used marijuana were about three times as likely to have ever used marijuana as the children of parents who never used the drug. With additional control for attitudinal and behavioral characteristics, the risk declined to about two.

• Parents who stopped using marijuana and those who were currently using marijuana had children who used marijuana at similar rates (e.g., 22%-27% lifetime use). This suggests that parental influence does not reflect imitation of the parent by the child but the effect of the parent having chosen to become a marijuana user.

• The influence of parental marijuana use on child lifetime marijuana use was similar for mothers and fathers, and sons and daughters.

• Parental influence on child marijuana use did not vary among racial/ethnic groups, after controlling for parent and child characteristics.

• Parental use of cigarettes, alcohol and cocaine each independently increased the risk that a child will use marijuana over and beyond the influence of parental use of marijuana.

• Parents who perceived little risk associated with marijuana use had children with similar beliefs. In addition, parental attitudes had an indirect effect on the child's use through the child's own attitudes.

• Adolescent attitudes had the strongest association with adolescent marijuana use of any of the three adolescent characteristics that were examined. Adolescents who perceived no risk or slight risk in occasional marijuana were twelve times more likely to have used marijuana in the last year than adolescents who perceived great risk.

• The association between adolescent marijuana use and attitudes about the lack of harm associated with marijuana use was five times as strong as the association between adolescent and parental use.

• Adolescent delinquency had a strong association with adolescent marijuana use and attitudes about the lack of harm associated with marijuana use.

• The association between adolescent delinquency and marijuana use was four times as strong as the association between adolescent and parental use.

• Adolescents who dropped out of school were significantly more likely to use marijuana than non-dropouts.

• Externalizing behavioral problems (e.g., aggression, delinquency) were more strongly associated with adolescent marijuana use than were internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, depression).

• Sociodemographic characteristics, including ethnicity, parental education and marital status, were weakly associated with adolescent marijuana use.

• Predicted changes in rates of adolescent marijuana use were estimated from assumed changes in parental behaviors, parental attitudes and adolescent attitudes.

• If 100 parents reduced their marijuana use from 1 to 2 days a year to not using at all, 7 adolescents would decrease their marijuana use from 6 times to 3 times a month.

• If 100 parents changed their perceptions about the harmfulness of occasional marijuana use from moderate to great risk, 4 adolescents would decrease their marijuana use from 6 times to 3 times a month.

• If 100 parents changed their perceptions about the harmfulness of occasional marijuana use from moderate to great risk, 13 adolescents would similarly change their perceptions.

• If 100 adolescents changed their perceptions about the harmfulness of occasional marijuana use from moderate to great risk, 36 would decrease their marijuana use from 6 times to 3 times a month.

This page was last updated on June 03, 2008.

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