Risk-taking behavior increases when combined with alcohol and marijuana use and the use and abuse of these and other substances have resulted in higher rates of student dropout and lower educational attainment; higher unemployment and poorer employment outcomes; increased birth defects and infant mortality; child abuse and parental neglect; disintegration of families; increased suicide attempts and completed suicides; higher rates of criminal activity and incarceration (particularly of African American males); and higher prevalence of HIV and AIDS.

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To address this problem in our community, Dr. Wade Nobles, in his “The Culture of Drugs in the Black Community’ reminds us that “we can’t use the theories, models, or interpretations of anyone else to even correct the problems that we experience…that are in fact, problems that other folk experience; we can’t grab some other person’s notion of what works and apply it to the African American community.” He goes on to issue the challenge to us that “we must build programs, interventions, and curricula upon something that reflects our own base, models that have integrity, that have not been contaminated.”