There is not a race or ethnicity on the planet that is not subject to substance abuse and addiction. As a counselor for both in class and online drug classes I can assure you that every ethnicity and race is present in my classes. Maybe not all of the time, but we all can fall victim to addiction.
A New Study – What Does it Show?
Black and Asian teenagers are much less likely to do drugs and drink booze than white kids the same age, according to a new study that raises fresh questions about ethnic stereotypes.
The report, which tallied the drug and alcohol use of 72,561 Americans between 12 and 17 years old over a three-year period ending in 2008, also showed that kids in general prefer smoking pot to swilling booze, and that they’re all abusing more prescription painkillers each year.
But to Dr. Dan Blazer, a Duke University psychiatrist and the study’s senior author, the varying levels of drug use among different ethnic groups is most revealing.
“There’s a myth out there that black kids are more likely to have problems with drugs than white kids,” he said.
His findings, however, tell a different story.
Blazer found that 35 percent of the white kids in the group, 37 percent of the Native Americans and 32 percent of Hispanics consumed alcohol in the last year.
By comparison, only one in four black kids and about one in five Asian teens reported drinking alcohol during that period.
Asians Smoke Less Ganja
Marijuana use varied, too. Less than 6 percent of Asian kids reported smoking dope over the past year — about half the percentage of white, black and Hispanic teens who did. The group mostly likely to smoke weed: Native American teens. One in four said they used marijuana.
Boston-based researchers said the findings are in line with earlier studies, yet the drug and alcohol myths die hard if they ever die at all.
But why these discrepancies exist is the question Blazer now faces.
He has his theories.
“Many of our students at Duke are Asian, and they say, ‘We just don’t use drugs like the other students at Duke,’ so maybe there’s a cultural damper on the use of drugs among Asians,” he said.
“We don’t really have a good explanation on why blacks use fewer drugs. It could be economics, or it could be something else.
“But we do know that white teens that use substances and abuse substances are less likely to get involved in crime (than their African-American peers) because they tend to have more financial resources.”
Interesting information. I still believe a good online drug class would help prevent a percentage of the drug problems and substance abuse issues we see today.