"Girls are retarded when they're stoned." Marijuana and the construction of gender roles among adolescent females

This paper examines why adolescent females continue to use less marijuana t han do adolescent males, with a particular emphasis on the normative bounda ries that restrict females in their access to and use of marijuana. The res ults are based on the analysis of the transcripts of 42 focus groups, with 122 male and 110 female participants. Focus groups were conducted in nine s eparate high schools, three of which included sizeable numbers of students of non-European ancestry. The results suggest that traditional gender roles continue to limit females in their access to this particular form of leisu re and sociability, and that these roles are in part enforced by male peers in their capacity as dealers and distributors.