Study: Black youths do less drugs than Whites

The myth of the post-racial America, encapsulated and refuted within one single paragraph:

Black youth are arrested for drug crimes at a rate ten times higher than that of whites. But new research shows that young African Americans are actually less likely to use drugs and less likely to develop substance use disorders, compared to whites, Native Americans, Hispanics and people of mixed race.

“Our goal is to alert people to the burden of drug problems and also to how some of our concern about who has these problems may not be true,” says Dr. Dan Blazer, senior author of the study and a professor of psychiatry at Duke University. “There's a perception among many individuals that African Americans as a group — regardless of socioeconomic status — tend to abuse or use drugs at higher rate and this [does not support] that."

Using data from 72,561 youth interviewed for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, researchers found that 37% of those aged between 12 and 17 had used alcohol or other drugs at least once in the past year. Nearly 8% met criteria for a substance use disorder — either the less severe “substance abuse” diagnosis or the more problematic “substance dependence,” which is more commonly known as addiction.

The study, which was published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, controlled for variables like socioeconomic status because rates of severe drug problems tend to be greater amongst the poor. Despite this, Native American youth fared worst, with 15% having a substance use disorder, compared to 9.2% for people of mixed racial heritage, 9.0% for whites, 7.7% for Hispanics, 5% for African Americans and 3.5% for Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Obviously, it’s because so many more Black people are locked up that fewer are left to use drugs on the streets. I mean, duh. (And Whitey uses more drugs because of, uh … oh – because they’re under so much stress from reverse racism! Yeah, that’s it.)

Of course, this means we need to throw more Blacks behind bars. Doesn’t that just make sense?

(via The Agitator)

Tags: Black people • White people • African-Americans • White-Americans • drug abuse • drug use • Dan Blazer • National Survey on Drug Use and Health