Drug Use

Drug Use Patterns by Race/Ethnicity

Data from a large-scale probability survey of drug use across the five major racial/ethnic groups in the United States—Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders—shows that, with the exception of Native Americans, racial/ethnic minorities are generally no more likely than are White people to use legal or illegal drugs. Among adolescents, Native Americans and Whites are most likely to use legal and illegal drugs. The same holds true for legal drug use among adults; however, African American adults are slightly more likely to use illegal drugs than adults who belong to other racial/ethnic groups.

Two issues arise from this research. First, although substantial differences in drug use exist within each of these large groups, most of the available data on drug use do not typically allow for more detailed comparisons among subgroups. Second, methodological concerns related to surveys may influence reported drug use by race/ethnic group. One of these concerns is specific to school-based surveys and the differential dropout rates of members of certain minority groups. Some researchers have suggested that the higher levels of drug use reported by White adolescents may be related to the fact that disadvantaged minority students who become more heavily involved with both legal and illegal drugs may be more likely than White students to drop out of school or show high rates of truancy. If this is the case, school-based surveys will underestimate rates of drug use among minorities. More generally, some research has suggested that both adolescent and adult minorities may be less likely to honestly report sensitive behaviors such as substance use.