URBAN MINORITY YOUTH - ALCOHOL AND MARIJUANA USE AND EXPOSURE TO UNPROTECTED INTERCOURSE

This article focuses on the use of alcohol and marijuana in the contex t of sexual relationships and the impact of these substances on the co nsistency of condom use by urban, minority youth. Regression models ar e presented to test for the effects of alcohol and marijuana use with sexual partners while controlling for the effects of respondents' sexu al history. The results indicated that when alcohol or marijuana was u sed with a partner, the consistency of condom use decreased even when other variables related to sexual history were controlled for. Alcohol use had a greater negative effect on condom use for Hispanic men and marijuana for African-American women than it did for Hispanic women an d African-American men. These findings argue for the need for targeted safer-sex intervention programs for urban, low-income, minority youth , and suggest that such programs may need to emphasize the increased r isk of human immunodeficiency virus exposure that may result from subs tance use, casual sex, and sex with multiple partners.