The consumption of marijuana and alcohol is related to personal and psychosocial factors. As part of the latter, daily experiences of discrimination may become a potent risk factor for such substance use [1].

Substance use is considered a public health problem that affects the normal functioning of millions of people, especially young people, who are at a stage of continuous physical, neurological, and psychological development [2]. Research suggests that young people are more likely to experience the harmful effects of substance use than adults [2,3,4]. These entail increased risk of affective and anxiety disorders, violence, psychotic symptoms or disorders, fatal and non-fatal overdose, substance abuse, cognitive impairment, polysubstance use, traffic accidents, self-harm, poor academic performance, and early dropouts [5,6,7,8,9].

The negative consequences and possible long-term effects in adulthood have also emerged as a topic of research interest [10,11], and global trends highlight the importance of this issue. Alcohol consumption by adolescents worldwide is 26.5% and 5.6% for marijuana consumption [12,13], with Europe and Latin America being the regions with the highest rates of substance use.

In Chile, the 12th national study of drugs among the school population, conducted by the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Consumption [14], found that on an average, regardless of gender, adolescents tried alcohol and marijuana for the first time before the age of 15 years (13.7 years for alcohol and 14.4 years for marijuana). Additionally, alcohol consumption within this population was 31.1%, and marijuana consumption was 30.9%. Trends indicate that as students grow older, they increasingly use these two substances. The law in Chile permits the possession and use of “small” amounts of marijuana for “personal use”; its use under medical prescription is permitted, although it is available mainly through informal markets and home cultivation [15,16].

The initiation and maintenance of substance use in adolescents are characterized by fluctuations between use and cessation, with some young people maintaining moderate use for decades and never increasing the use, while others may exhibit intermittent cessation periods, permanently abstain, or increase rapidly, facilitating the development of substance use disorders [10,17].

The literature has focused on identifying which risk factors could have an influence on the onset and maintenance of substance use in adolescents and has documented that personality traits [18,19], neurological development [20], stress reactivity [21], influences of family, school, and peers [22,23,24]; access to alcohol and drugs [25], poverty [26], social exclusion, inequality, and discrimination [27,28] are the risk factors.

There is a growing research interest in the potential role of discrimination, which falls under the last factor mentioned above. Discrimination is a multifaceted and multidimensional phenomenon, which, according to Jones [29], manifests itself through four sub-types of discrimination: (1) individuals—understood as the daily actions of a personal and degrading nature that promote beliefs of inferiority among people; (2) cultural, which refers to the beliefs of superiority held by those belonging to the dominant group over the subordinate group; (3) institutionalized, which is characterized by differential access to opportunities in society based on systematic discrimination on the basis of race; and (4) collective, which manifests through the restriction or denial of basic rights and privileges of members of the minority group by the dominant group [1,30].

According to the minority stress model [31], discrimination is considered a biased behavior that favors the ingroup while causing harm or disadvantage to the outgroup, especially to members of the minority group who experience high levels of stress that are related to their minority status. More recently, from an integral perspective, the social resistance model proposed that the discrimination that minorities face can encourage members of these groups to actively participate (consciously or unconsciously) in diverse behaviors of daily resistance to express their opposition toward the majority group [32].

These daily resistance behaviors are mostly characterized by unhealthy behaviors that allow individuals to reduce stress and express their dissatisfaction. Specifically, a lack of attachment to the dominant culture, along with experiences of discrimination, may be associated with maladaptive responses that include excessive use of alcohol and marijuana [33]. Jones’ [29] conceptualization of individual discrimination, together with models of minority stress and social resistance, converges because discrimination is observed daily between different groups of individuals and produces stress in the affected group. Thus, any experience of chronic, routine discrimination or unfair treatment can be considered everyday discrimination.

Prior research on the relationship between discrimination and substance use suggests that, with greater experience of discrimination, the use of substances—including alcohol and marijuana—tends to increase [1]. A study on Caribbean adolescents in the United States demonstrated a positive association between discrimination and substance use, with the effect being stronger in men than in women [34]. Similarly, a longitudinal study on Hispanic adolescent immigrants from Los Angeles and Miami, who had resided in the United States for five years, found that ethnic discrimination had significant effects on increased alcohol consumption, which was consistent for men and women [35]. Similarly, a study of Indian and Pakistani migrants in Hong Kong examined whether the reasons for drinking to cope with stress and improve their situation had mediating effects on the relationship between perceived discrimination and hazardous alcohol consumption. Racial discrimination was found to be associated with hazardous alcohol consumption, and this relationship was entirely mediated by the reason for coping with the situation [36]. Additionally, a longitudinal study of African American adolescents found that experiences of discrimination were positively associated with substance use, but this association was mediated by school participation and relationships with peers who consume substances. This finding suggests that discrimination leads to the observed associations with substance use and not the other way around [37].

Despite the abundant evidence on the association between discrimination and substance use, especially from studies conducted in the United States, there is a lack of studies on this association in the context of Latin American adolescents, mainly in Chile, which has a high prevalence of alcohol and marijuana use in its population [15,38].

Although the Chilean government and its respective institutions (educational and public safety) have implemented various preventive programs to reduce and control substance use among adolescents, they are characterized by maintaining epidemiological monitoring, in addition to guiding educational institutions to incorporate specific protocols and norms. These are mostly related to developing activities that promote healthy behaviors, constant communication with students’ families, addressing specific issues of drug knowledge, resistance to social pressure, peer influence, mental health status, and access to marijuana and/or alcohol. These do not include the effects of everyday discrimination [39]. Therefore, considering the effects of discrimination and substance use on adolescents’ health and academic achievements [40,41,42], it is necessary to obtain information that can complement and contribute to the design of preventive programs in educational institutions.

This study examined the relationship between everyday discrimination and alcohol and marijuana use in Chilean adolescents. These findings will allow us to obtain new, novel information that could inform future interventions in schools in a country where mental health services still have serious inequalities in terms of access and where the prevalence of marijuana use, since 2011, has more than doubled [15,43].