We focused our analyses on these measures of interest: (1) Perceived risk of marijuana use was assessed by asking respondents about the risk of smoking marijuana once or twice a week (no risk, slight risk, moderate risk, great risk). We dichotomized this variable into those reporting no-risk vs. all others, and separately, those reporting great-risk vs. all others; because these variables provide similar results, results for no-risk are reported but not discussed. (2) Marijuana availability: respondents reported how difficult it was to obtain marijuana (probably impossible, very difficult, fairly difficult, fairly easy or very easy). We dichotomized this variable into those reporting that marijuana was fairly or very easy to obtain vs. all others. (3) Perceived acceptability of marijuana was assessed by asking adult respondents how they feel about adults trying marijuana once or twice (neither approve nor disapprove, somewhat disapprove and strongly disapprove); adolescents (12-17 years old) were not asked this item. We dichotomized this variable into those reporting somewhat or strongly disapproved vs. all others.
