http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/873637602/CE21796694F45CAPQ/5?accountid=14729

In the article “The effects of family structure on African American adolescents marijuana use.” by Jelani Mandara, Sheba Y. Rogers, and Richard E. Zinbarg talks about African American Adolescents and how their family structure plays a huge part in their marijuana and drug use. They talked about how the current marijuana use among high school students estimated out to 49% of African American young men had used marijuana at least once in their lifetime and 30% used marijuana in the previous 30 days. They touched on the topic of young African American males were more likely to use marijuana if their is only a single parent in their household, generally speaking about the biological father not in the picture anymore. They also talked about the self control of the young men and the use of marijuana and how they might not have to self control to not use drugs based on their household structure as well as the neighborhoods they grow up in.  They talk about how young African American men from poverty neighborhoods are more likely to use marijuana than males in nice neighborhoods. The article talked about young African American women and their use of marijuana and their findings were totally different from the males. They found that African American females are less likely to use marijuana in a single household and have more self control than males. But they did say that the African American females from a poverty neighborhood are likely to try marijuana because they are around it in their neighborhoods. The overall article concluded that their is a huge risk factor in males and the use of marijuana when the biological father is not in the household and in a single parent household, and family structure was not related to the use of marijuana for females.

This article i thought was very interesting because i can somewhat relate to it not from the use of marijuana but from aspect of growing up in a single parent household. I know growing up in a single parent household with no father is really hard on a African American man because you feel betrayed and now you have to be the man of the house. When growing up with out a father or in a single parent household people often turn to the wrong things like marijuana or even just look to rebel because they do not have that role model to tell them what to do or even to guide them into becoming a young man. This article is a really good one and it has opened up my eyes to thoughts that i never thought about as a child and never looked at a females perspective and just as a race as a whole. I encourage everyone to read this article and think what they can come up with why African American males are more likely to turn to drugs and marijuana than females.