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Prior research documents intergenerational (IG) continuity in marijuana use, with most work adopting a life course perspective. Incorporating a methodology that allows for the measurement of "patterns of behavior" instead of singular aspects of parent marijuana use (e.g., age of onset or frequency at any one age or ages), we investigated the simultaneous effects of parental age of onset, frequency, and duration of marijuana use across 3 periods of the life course (i.e., adolescence, emerging adulthood, and adulthood) on the timing of first marijuana use among offspring. Using prospective data from 2 companion studies, the Rochester Youth Development Study and the Rochester Intergenerational Study, we used group-based trajectory models to estimate trajectories (or patterns) of parental marijuana use spanning ages 14 to 31 among a birth cohort of 462 parents. We then examined the relationship between parental trajectories of marijuana use and the timing of the onset of marijuana use through age 25 among firstborn offspring. Both late-onset persistent use by parents and increasing chronic use spanning adolescence to adulthood by parents were associated with an increased likelihood of onset of marijuana use among offspring. The results underscore the importance of patterns of marijuana use for IG continuity in contrast to singular measures (e.g., age of onset among parents), which can obfuscate important IG patterns of continuity. Prevention and intervention programs should consider the entire history of parent use to better identify children most at risk for the onset of marijuana use in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

This study examines the role that effective parenting plays in the relationship between childhood conduct problems and the early onset of drug use. Effective parenting is posited to have a direct protective effect on drug use, a moderating effect on the relationship between conduct problems and early onset, and mediate the relationship between conduct problems and early onset. Two-generational panel data are used to examine these relationships among 263 parent–child dyads. Support is found for the direct protective effect of effective parenting on early onset .and for a partial mediating effect of parenting in the relationship between conduct problems and early onset. There was no support found for parenting moderating the risk that is posed by having childhood conduct problems. Implications for preventing childhood conduct problems from resulting in early onset of drug use through enhancing efforts to help parents cope with such problems are discussed.

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Increasingly, three generation studies have investigated intergenerational (IG) continuity and discontinuity in substance use and related problem behaviors. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the conceptual definition of continuity or to different types of discontinuity (resilience and escalation) or to measurement sensitivity, which affects not only the magnitudes of observed continuity but also factors that correlate with this linkage. This study uses longitudinal data on 427 parent-child dyads from the Rochester IG Study to study continuity and discontinuity in substance use over ages 14-18. Results suggest that the degree of IG continuity, resilience, and escalation in adolescent substance use, as well as correlates of each, depend heavily on how heterogeneity in the behavior is taken into account.