TY - JOUR
T1 - Does heavy adolescent marijuana use lead to criminal involvement in adulthood? Evidence from a multiwave longitudinal study of urban African Americans
AU - Green, Kerry M.
AU - Doherty, Elaine E.
AU - Stuart, Elizabeth A.
AU - Ensminger, Margaret E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for this study was provided by NIDA Grants R01DA022366-01A2 and R01DA026863-01. NIDA had no further role in study design, data collection, analysis or interpretation; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
PY - 2010/11/1
Y1 - 2010/11/1
N2 - While marijuana use is common during adolescence, it can have adverse long-term consequences, with serious criminal involvement being one of them. In this study, we utilize longitudinal data from the Woodlawn Study of a community cohort of urban African Americans (N=702) to examine the effects of heavy adolescent marijuana use (20 or more times) on adult criminal involvement, including perpetration of drug, property and violent crime, as well as being arrested and incarcerated. Utilizing propensity score matching to take into account the shared risk factors between drug use and crime, regression analyses on the matched samples show that heavy adolescent marijuana use may lead to drug and property crime and criminal justice system interactions, but not violent crime. The significant associations of early heavy marijuana use with school dropout and the progression to cocaine and/or heroin use only partially account for these findings. Results suggest that the prevention of heavy marijuana use among adolescents could potentially reduce the perpetration of drug and property crime in adulthood, as well as the burden on the criminal justice system, but would have little effect on violent crime.
AB - While marijuana use is common during adolescence, it can have adverse long-term consequences, with serious criminal involvement being one of them. In this study, we utilize longitudinal data from the Woodlawn Study of a community cohort of urban African Americans (N=702) to examine the effects of heavy adolescent marijuana use (20 or more times) on adult criminal involvement, including perpetration of drug, property and violent crime, as well as being arrested and incarcerated. Utilizing propensity score matching to take into account the shared risk factors between drug use and crime, regression analyses on the matched samples show that heavy adolescent marijuana use may lead to drug and property crime and criminal justice system interactions, but not violent crime. The significant associations of early heavy marijuana use with school dropout and the progression to cocaine and/or heroin use only partially account for these findings. Results suggest that the prevention of heavy marijuana use among adolescents could potentially reduce the perpetration of drug and property crime in adulthood, as well as the burden on the criminal justice system, but would have little effect on violent crime.
KW - Adolescent marijuana use
KW - African Americans
KW - Criminal involvement
KW - Longitudinal
KW - Propensity scores
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U2 - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.05.018
DO - 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2010.05.018
M3 - Article
C2 - 20598815
AN - SCOPUS:78049350843
SN - 0376-8716
VL - 112
SP - 117
EP - 125
JO - Drug and alcohol dependence
JF - Drug and alcohol dependence
IS - 1-2
ER -