“The survey of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years reveals that in total, 37 percent used alcohol or drugs in the past year, and 7.9 percent met criteria that would identify the teens as having a substance-related disorder. When separated by race, Native American teens had the highest level of drug use, with nearly 48 percent reporting having used substances in the last year. That group is followed by 39 percent of white teens, almost 37 percent of Hispanics, 36 percent of multi-racial adolescents, 32 percent of blacks and nearly 24 percent of Asians. “There is certainly still a myth out there that black kids are more likely to have problems with drugs than white kids, and this documents as clearly as any study we’re aware of that the rate of … substance-related disorders among African American youths is significantly lower,” Dan Blazer from Duke’s Department of Psychiatry, a senior author of the study, told the Raleigh News & Observer.”— Teen Drug And Alcohol Use Lowest Among Blacks, Asians
Chances that law enforcement will stop targeting black teenagers for their war on drugs? Somewhere down around zero.
(via squeetothegee)
But shouldn’t they also look at how many native Americans, Caucasians, African Americans, etc there are taking this test? Say there’s only 15 maybe americans taking it, and 70 African Americans. Even if more african Americans did drugs, it would look less compared to the native Americans because they’re such a low number. Get it? So they should also look at percent of race taking it.
I think you misunderstood. This survey did not look at total number of teens who reported using drugs in the survey and then break down that total number by race. (48+39+37+36+32+24 doesn’t equal 100, after all.) If this had been the case, then yes, it would make sense to know the overall racial background of all participants in the study.
However, this survey looked specifically at rates per use by race. 39% of white teens who participated in this study reported using drugs. You don’t need to know that 40% of those who took the survey were white to know that 39% of the white people who took the survey reported doing drugs. Make sense?