Perceived Racism-based police use of force and cannabis use among Black emerging adults

Abstract

1. Introduction

In recent years, we have observed a steady increase in the prevalence of cannabis use among adults in the United States (US). While rates have increased among an array of sociodemographic subgroups, several groups have been identified as experiencing especially elevated risk including males and emerging adults 18–25 years of age (Hasin, Shmulewitz, & Sarvet, 2019). And, critically, while rates of cannabis use among emerging adults are elevated for all racial/ethnic groups, data from the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicate that—compared to their Asian, Hispanic, Native American, and White counterparts—a disproportionate number of Black emerging adults are current or past-month cannabis users (27% versus 22.5% of non-Black young adults) (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2020, 2020).

Prior research has identified a number of predictors of cannabis use among Black emerging adults (King, Mrug, & Windle, 2020). One salient predictor is racial discrimination. Utilizing a longitudinal study design, Borrell et al. (2007) found that Black emerging adults who self-reported experiencing perceived racial discrimination across multiple life domains (e.g., at school, getting a job) at Time I (year 7) and Time II (year 15) were three times more likely to be frequent cannabis users compared with Black emerging adults who reported no perceived discrimination. Assari and colleagues (2019) found, in a longitudinal prospective study of Black adolescents, that exposure to perceived racial discrimination in late adolescence was associated with increased risk of cannabis use for Black men but not Black women during their emerging adult years. Data from an experimental laboratory-based study with a sample (n = 100) of Black emerging adults aged 18–25 revealed that participants who thought they experienced discrimination due to being excluded by White players in a computer game reported more willingness to use cannabis than those who felt they were not excluded (Gerrard et al., 2012).

Another important predictor of cannabis use among Black emerging adults is violent victimization. In a longitudinal study, Pahl, Brook, and Lee (2013) found that violent victimization (e.g., being threatened, attacked, or injured) was robustly associated with increased cannabis use risk among Black emerging adult men. This is in keeping with work by Doherty, Robertson, Green, Fothergill, and Ensminger (2012) indicating that—in a prospective study of African Americans in Chicago—exposure to violent victimization during emerging adulthood predicts increased cannabis use. This finding is also consistent with a broad body of literature indicating that victimization is an important risk factor for substance misuse across the lifespan (Salas-Wright, Vaughn, & Reingle Gonzalez, 2016).

Racism is a common experience for many Black emerging adults, particularly when interacting with police. National survey data indicate that most (84%) Black emerging adults believe Black people are treated less fairly than White people when dealing with police and half (44–50%) report having been discriminated against when interacting with police (Anderson, 2019, Horowitz et al., 2019). The use of methods like racial profiling (e.g., targeting individuals for suspicion of a crime based on their racialized group identity) and racial threat (e.g., coercive control of racialized minority groups for political ends) likely contributes to widespread concerns about injustice and discrimination toward Black people during police encounters (Chambliss and Seidman, 1980, Warren et al., 2006). These types of racism-based policing practices have contributed to police contacts involving police use-of-force and associated deleterious mental health outcomes for Black emerging adults (DeVylder et al., 2021, Motley and Joe, 2018).

Most police departments in America utilize the use-of-force continuum to instruct police officers on how to respond to situations with the appropriate level of force to resolve a situation and keep officers and innocent bystanders safe (Institute, 2015). The use-of-force continuum begins with less-lethal force [i.e., officer(s) presence, officer(s) verbalization, officer(s) empty hand controls, officer(s) use of less-lethal technologies that include baton, chemical spray, or Taser] and ends with officer(s) use of lethal force [i.e., officer(s) discharge of their firearm]. Nationally, Black emerging adults are 2–3 times more likely than their counterparts from other ethnic groups to experience exposure to police threat or use of non-fatal force (DeVylder et al., 2018, Eith and Durose, 2011, Harrell and Davis, 2020, Hickman et al., 2008, Hyland et al., 2015, Langton and Durose, 2013) and be killed as a result of police use-of-force (Edwards et al., 2019, Ross, 2015), with males having significantly higher rates than females. Moreover, research has documented a significant association between exposure to police use-of-force and increased poor mental health days (Bor, Venkataramani, Williams, & Tsai, 2018), stress and worry (Gomez, 2016), depression (DeVylder et al., 2017), manic symptoms (Meade, Steiner, & Klahm, 2015), anxiety symptoms (Geller, Fagan, Tyler, & Link, 2014;), suicide attempts (DeVylder et al., 2017), and trauma stress symptoms (Smith-Lee & Robinson, 2019) among Black emerging adult populations.

According to Carter et al. (2013), a racism-based event occurs when an individual is exposed to an event that is experienced as being sudden, out of their control, emotionally painful, and prejudicial/discriminatory. When police disproportionately use force toward certain groups (e.g., Black emerging adults), some members of that group can perceive the actions of police as racism-based (Motley, Joe, McQueen, Clifton, & Carlton, 2022). Recent evidence makes clear that direct (as a victim or witnessing in person) and indirect (seen in media) exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force can be detrimental to the wellbeing of Black emerging adults. For instance, English et al. (2017) found a positive association between direct exposure to police-based discrimination and depressive symptomatology among Black adult men. Similarly, Tynes, Willis, Stewart, and Hamilton (2019) observed that indirect exposure to videos of police violence against Black people was linked with greater depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms among Black adolescents and emerging adults.

Although the aforementioned studies provide a critical foundation for understanding the consequences of exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force, they did not include cannabis use as a potential outcome. Extant research suggest that some Black emerging adults may engage in cannabis use as a form of self-medication to cope with their exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force (Breslau et al., 2003, Danielson et al., 2009, Gibbons et al., 2010, Motley et al., 2017). To fill this noted gap in science, the present study examined the relationship between direct (as a victim or witnessing in person) and indirect (seen in media) exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use among a sample of Black emerging adults. In particular, we assessed the predictive role of direct and indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force in cannabis use for Black emerging adults. At a critical time in our nation’s history, the present study provides new evidence to inform policies and practices related to both cannabis prevention and policing.

2. Materials and methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine sex differences in the association between exposure (direct and indirect) to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use among Black emerging adults. Our findings revealed significantly higher rates of indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force for females in comparison to male participants. Videos of police using excessive fatal and non-fatal force against citizens, particularly Black, are salient on social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok). Furthermore, emerging adult females use social media platforms more frequently than their male counterpart (Perrin & Anderson, 2019). Thus, the high rates of indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force among female participants in the current study may be attributed to their high usage of social media which put them at vulnerability for seeing videos of these types of events. For example, Campbell and Valera (2020) found that roughly 85% of a community sample of emerging adult college students (61% Black, 45% female) reported learning about incidents of police violence from social media and 91% reported watching videos of these incidents on social media.

Our findings revealed that male participants who reported higher rates of indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force were significantly more likely than females to report cannabis use, which is congruent with previous studies that have found a significant positive association between racial discrimination and cannabis use among Black emerging adult males (Assari et al., 2019, Gerrard et al., 2012, Parker et al., 2017). Male participants in the current study may have engaged in cannabis use as a way to cope with their emotional responses to indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force events (Campbell and Valera, 2020, Gibbons et al., 2010). Motley, Chen, Johnson, and Joe (2020) found that exposure to videos of police using force against civilians was significantly associated with feelings of fear, sadness, and anger for a convenient sample of Black emerging adult males (n = 101) detained in a medium size midwestern city jail. However, future research is warranted to explicate whether Black emerging adult males use cannabis as a coping mechanism for their experiences with indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force events.

We found no significant association between direct or indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use for female participants. These findings may be due to socialization around masculine and feminine gender roles in the American society that have contributed to women internalizing their emotions, which can lead to anxiety and depression, and men externalizing their emotions in the form of risk-taking behaviors such as cannabis use (Eaton et al., 2012, Grant and Weissman, 2007, Kessler et al., 1993, Kessler et al., 1994).

The findings of this study must be considered in light of several limitations. First, our cross-sectional study design limits our ability to make causal inferences about the relationship between indirect exposure to racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use for Black emerging adult males. Without temporal ordering of variables, it is possible that relationships in this study may be bidirectional or may have different causal ordering. Second, reliance on self-reported accounts of exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force events and cannabis use may minimize findings due to recall biases that are inherent in self-report. Third, the sample used in this study is a convenient sample of Black emerging adult college students in St. Louis, Missouri and cannot be generalized beyond this population. Ferguson is a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, and the ensuing protest after the killing of Mike Brown and failure by the St. Louis County prosecutor to charge police officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Mike Brown, which may have introduced bias regarding our participants reporting of exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force. Lastly, the dichotomous nature of our cannabis use variable did not allow us to quantify the number of days in the past-30 days that a participant engaged in cannabis use, the severity of cannabis use, the age a first use of cannabis, and motives for using cannabis.

The current study provides evidence that indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force contributes to past 30-day cannabis use and support extant literature suggesting that Black emerging adult males engage in cannabis use as a form of self-medication to cope with their potentially traumatic experiences (Leeies et al., 2010, Vedelago et al., 2022).

Overall, our results suggest that future research and interventions targeting the interplay between indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use is needed. Future studies would benefit from a prospective longitudinal design that implemented both quantitative and qualitative methods to gather data at multiple time points in order to investigate the frequency of exposure (direct and indirect) to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use and potential factors (coping styles) that could mediate the relationship between exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use. Qualitative interviews would help to identify themes and coping profiles of cannabis using Black emerging adult males that are not necessarily obtainable via quantitative methods.

In the context of America’s inequitable law enforcement practices, it is crucial to expand our understanding of the mental health impacts of racism-based policing if we are to make progress on improving health equity for marginalized groups. Including the direct and indirect exposure to perceived racism-based police violence scales during assessments of trauma exposure with Black emerging adults in community and college/university mental health care settings would provide clinicians and practitioners with a more holistic understanding of the types of traumatic events Black emerging adults experience and enable them to provide appropriate services for this population.

The current milieu in America is also filled with strong demands for transformative policies that attenuate gratuitous police use-of-force toward Black citizens and hold police accountable for these senseless acts. Knowledge gained from this study could inform the development of culturally relevant law enforcement policy and trainings that focus on safe and effective methods for procedurally just policing for Black emerging adults. Moreover, findings can provide guidance to social media outlets on the behavioral health impact of exposure to videos of police violence, encouraging these outlets to place warning messages on all videos involving police violence that are posted on their platforms.

In summary, the current study provides novel findings regarding the relationship between exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and cannabis use for Black emerging adults. Study findings advance our understanding of the prevalence of exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force and its influence on cannabis use for Black emerging adults, specifically males. Further research is needed to ascertain if Black emerging adult males engage in cannabis use as a form of self-medication to cope with their indirect (seen in media) exposure to perceived racism-based police use-of-force events.

5. Role of Funding Sources

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute On Minority Health And Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F31MD013386. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Robert O. Motley: Conceptualization, Methodology, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. William Byansi: Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Rebekah Siddiqi: Writing – review & editing. Kaycee L. Bills: Writing – review & editing. Christopher P. Salas-Wright: Investigation, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

References