Witnessing another person being killed or injured and experiencing a life threatening accident were associated with cannabis initiation in AA women only. Physical abuse and MDD were discovered as risk factors for both cannabis initiation and transition to cannabis-related problems but only in the EA women, suggesting distinct risk factors for EA women illuminating a possible point of intervention for these individuals. A possible explanation for differences in hazard associated physical abuse may be due to differences in acculturation of physical punishment. Previous research supports variations in cultural norms pertaining to the use of physical discipline (Deater-Deckard et al., 2003) and AA parents have been reported to be more likely to use harsh physical discipline as compared to EA parents (Zolotor et al., 2008). Furthermore, in a partially overlapping study, AAs were found to be more likely than EAs to endorse behavioral questions querying physical abuse not directly labeling the experience as traumatic (Unpublished results). Therefore the experience, although termed physical abuse, may not have been interpreted as such by the participant. Therefore increased risk of cannabis involvement might not be expected. Overall, these differences in trauma associated risk are difficult to interpret as we would have expected larger hazards
