Study reveals new findings on Marijuana use among young men

How neighborhood environments can impact Marijuana use?

A new study by Yale scientists suggests that some social fabrics, such as their neighborhoods, friendships, and ideas about masculinity, powerfully affect Marijuana use among youthful minority men.

Scientists discovered that solid social bonds between men may increment, instead of lessening, pot utilize, in spite of what was beforehand thought, and that men who have faith in more customary manly sexual orientation parts—like men should be solid, effective, and not whine or show stress—will probably get some distance from Marijuana.

Marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States. While marijuana use is prevalent among emerging adults of all genders and races, Black and Latino emerging adults who use marijuana are more likely to experience the drug’s negative consequences, such as incarceration, interpersonal violence, injury, and dependence, as compared to their White peers.

The study takes one step forward that determines that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood leads to escalated rates of marijuana use. Scientists take a gander at two significant qualities to decide an area’s effect on wellbeing: neighborhood issues, which can portray an assortment of markers of pain, for example, surrendered structures, litter, savagery, and wrongdoing, that are known to cause everyday stretch that can upset wellbeing and prosperity; and social union, characterized by solid relational securities, shared esteems, and an absence of contention amongst people and gatherings inside an area, which can encourage constructive wellbeing results.

The research led by Tamara Taggart, Ph.D., MPH, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, said, “This result suggests that neighborhoods can be a source of stress that may influence men to cope through using substances.”

“These findings underscore the importance of understanding social cohesion and neighborhood contexts when trying to reduce the impact of substance use. Our findings imply that more socially connected men may view marijuana use as a way to enact their masculinity and establish a stable identity.”

As not all young men in disadvantaged neighborhoods use marijuana, it becomes necessary, the paper points out, to examine other factors that may deter them and to get a better understanding of how neighborhood environments can impact substance use. Taggart turns to masculinity as a further determinant of health behavior.

These findings are published in American Journal on Men’s Health.

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