Given the aforementioned literature, the present study aimed to examine correlates of marijuana use in a sample of Southeast U.S. college students. Specifically, we examined sociodemographics, other health risk behaviors , and psychosocial correlates in relation to marijuana use. The US Asian American population grew by 43% between 2000 and 2010, compared to a 9.7% growth in the general population, making Asian Americans the fastest growing racial group . Asian Americans are projected to constitute6.5% of the US population by 2025, and 9.3% by 2050 . The Asian American population is a heterogeneous group that includes at least 43 ethnic subgroups with different languages and dialects, immigration histories, religious beliefs, socioeconomic statuses, and traditional patterns for seeking health care. These social and cultural differences among Asian Americans may affect their psychiatric clinical manifestations, severity of mental health problems, access to health care,and treatment compliance and outcomes .Overall, the reported prevalence of mental illness is lower in the Asian American adult population compared to other ethnic groups .
Despite the lower risk of mental illness among Asian Americans, it is still important to investigate because recent studies have shown that Asian American patients were admitted to the San Francisco Psychiatric Emergency Services twice as frequently as European and Latino/a Americans. They showed significantly higher functional impairment based on their Global Assessment Functioning scores . In addition, a prevalence study showed that schizophrenia and psychotic disorders,cannabis grow lights which are severe and chronic types of psychiatric disorders, are more common among Asian American veterans than among African American and Latino/aveterans .Substance use studies have shown that Asian Americans are less likely to use substances and have a lower severity of drug use than European Americans . Of Asian Americans, Filipino/a Americans were reported to have the highest prevalence of substance use and cigarette smoking. Japanese Americans were found to have the highest number of alcohol related problems and binge-drinking episodes, followed by Filipino and Multi-Asian Americans including Korean and Chinese . Substance use within the Asian American population has largely been ignored, mainly due to the popularity of the model minority theory which paints Asian Americans as the exemplary racial/ethnic group, thus minimizing the perceived severity of the problems . Often, it is considered shameful within Asian cultures to have a family member with a mental illness or substance use problem, resulting in familial pressures to avoid seeking proper treatment.
Substance dependent Asian Americans have already been shown to underutilize available programs and treatment when compared to European Americans. Park, Shibusawa, Yoon, & Son found that the majority of Chinese Americans and Korean Americans referred to such treatment by the legal system denied having alcohol problems. Only five percent of the sample admitted to having alcohol problems. Very few of them had ever heard about the Alcoholics Anonymous program and none of them had ever attended the program. Similar results were found in another study that showed that Asian Americans utilized legal services more frequently than medical and psychiatric services related to their alcohol and drug use problems .Co-occurring substance use in persons with mental disorders is a common issue. About 18.5% of the adults with mental disorders met the criteria for substance use disorders, whereas only 5% of the adults without mental disorders met the criteria for substance use disorders . According to a recent epidemiology study, the prevalence of lifetime co-occurring substance use and mental disorder was about 7%.Depressive disorder was significantly related to higher rates of alcohol, stimulant, and opiate use, whereas schizophrenia and schizo affective disorder were significantly related to lower rates of alcohol, opiate, and poly substance use. In another national 10-year longitudinal survey,persons with major depression, anxiety disorder, and disruptive behavior disorder were at a significantly greater risk to start using illicit drugs during the follow-up period . Although there were subgroup psychiatric diagnostic differences regarding the prevalence of substance use, persons with mental disorders generally showed a higher prevalence of substance use.However, little has been done to study the coexistence of mental illness and substance use in the rapidly growing Asian American population.