More Mexican Americans use drugs than any other group: General Social Survey respondents (N=1839) were asked if they had used illegal drugs in the past year. Here are the percentages who answered yes by their ethnic background:
Percent who used illegal drugs in the past year:
Mexican 9.0
Amerindian 6.7
Scottish 6.6
English/Welsh 6.6
German 6.6
USA 4.8
Irish 3.3
Italian 2.8
Black 1.8
This accords with other survey data which indicate illicit drug use is high for Native Americans and Mex-Ams, moderate for whites, and low for blacks. Something new is that use is lower for whites from Catholic countries.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
-
Which factor reduces family size the most? Below are the standardized OLS regression coefficients for a sample of whites ages 40-59: Stand...
-
In the comments in the last post , some readers contended that Jews are not ethnocentric. Using the same question I used in the comments se... -
More on trust: As a follow-up to the last post, I wondered about the level of trust in Asian and Muslim countries. Based on World Values Sur...
Blacks at the lowest level?
ReplyDeleteTheres something fishy there...
There is some research evidence that blacks--at least black guys--underreport their deviant activities to interviewers.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen, and I certainly never knew a representative sample of people, a much smaller fraction of blacks than whites use drugs. But blacks who use tend to have more problems with it.
ReplyDeleteNarcotics Anonymous, at least the meetings I go to, is more black than the general population.
I worked nightshift at a coffee joint. Most of the crack-pipe addicts were Black.
ReplyDeleteRepresentative? I dunno.
Blacks are more religious and religious people are probably more likely to use a 12-step program.
ReplyDeleteThat may well be true. Ron, is there a relationship btw religiosity and 12 stepping?
We may just be seeing the same thing with drugs as with alcohol: blacks are more likely to abstain, and more likely to have a problem with moderating use.
Mensa, crack seems to be more popular among blacks than speed is, which I think is odd. It is much safer and cheaper to make speed than buy crack.
"Ron, is there a relationship btw religiosity and 12 stepping?"
ReplyDeleteI don't know, but I doubt it. In college, I had a job where I took hospital patients to AA & NA meetings, and the folks I saw did not seem like the church-going type. I suspect almost all of them believed in God, if that's what you mean. The program is based on the idea that you cannot beat the addiction: only a "higher power" can.
And I suspect you might be right about the lack of moderate use among blacks.
Ron, I pretty much meant church going. Almost everyone believes God ( or some spiritual something) exists.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems black drug users are more likely to be dealers as well, and surveying the non-prison population would underestimate black drug use.