ApostateAbe
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2002
- Messages
- 1,299
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Basic Beliefs
- Infotheist. I believe the gods to be mere information.
"Whites abuse drugs just as often as blacks, but blacks are much more likely to be arrested for it," so the claim goes. If the statistic is correct, it is a smoking-gun indictment of the racism of the American criminal justice system: it unfairly targets blacks.
The orgainization most responsible for the claim is the Brookings Institution, a large left-leaning think tank. Then, among many other media, the claim was picked up by:
The NAACP variation of the claim deserves special rebuke:
"5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites."
Instead of claiming that the rate of drug abuse is equal among the races, as is typically claimed, the NAACP takes the spin much further by failing to account for population share for the claim about racial differences in drug abuse but being perfectly responsible about the "rate" in the very next claim about racial differences in imprisonment, as though the author was consciously trying to mislead the reader about the racial differences.
But, even if they did claim that the rate of drug abuse was equal among the races, they would be wrong, due to a fallacy common to all of these publications: assuming that each race tells the truth about drug abuse equally.
The source data used to infer equality of drug abuse is the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the USDHS. Their data is collected "through face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of the population at the respondent's place of residence". No drug tests. They just ask, i.e. "Did you do crack cocaine in the past month? No? OK, moving on."
Problem: races do not tell the truth about drug abuse at an equal rate. This is no mere speculation. This is established fact well known among researchers. They know it, because in some studies the researchers first ask the subjects which drugs they have used in the past month, and then they administer a drug test. The results: most subjects of any race are truth tellers, but blacks are many times more likely than whites to lie to researchers about their past drug abuse. The 2005 study by Michael Fendrich and Timothy P Johnson, "Race/Ethnicity Differences in the Validity of Self-Reported Drug Use: Results from a Household Survey," showed that the concordances between the interview and the drug test for cocaine was 90% for blacks and 99% for whites, and for marijuana it was 87% for blacks and 100% for whites.
The 2008 study by Ledgerwood et al, "Comparison between self-report and hair analysis of illicit drug use in a community sample of middle-age men," tells the same story. So does Miyong and Hill's "Validity of self-report of illicit drug use in young hypertensive urban African American males," 2003. So does Fendrich and Xu's "The validity of drug use reports from juvenile arrestees," 1994. So does Golub et al's "The Variation in Arrestees' Disclosure of Recent Drug Use Across Locations, Drugs, and Demographic Characteristics," 2005.
It is an established scientific reality. Blacks are many times more likely than whites to lie to researchers about their past drug abuse.
Maybe blacks have a good excuse to lie to researchers, and they don't trust the researchers because they see the researchers as part of the white establishment who oppresses them, or something like that. But, there is no good excuse for uncritically passing along a very bad interpretation of the statistics. It should not be claimed that the rate of drug abuse is equal between whites and blacks. The most you can say is that the SELF-REPORTS of drug abuse are equal between whites and blacks. More reliable data about the racial differences in drug abuse does not come from arrest statistics nor does it come from self-reports. It comes from racial differences in hospital emergency room visits. See Table 35 on page 115 of the report of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Drug Abuse Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities," 2003, a table of drug related emergency room visits. It shows that blacks are 21% of all drug-related emergency room visits as of 2000, in spite of being 12% of the population. In 2011, it was worse: blacks are reportedly 31% of drug-related ER visits, in spite of being 13% of the population, according to Table 6 on page 30 of Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2011: "National Estimates of Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits," of the USDHS.
So, why should we care? We do not have to conclude from the drug abuse statistics that blacks are inherently more criminal nor inherently more susceptible to addiction. But, we should not be drawn into the myths for the sake of the ideological belief that the main problem is an unfair justice system. One way or the other, regardless of the cause, blacks really do abuse drugs much more often than whites. They are more likely to be arrested for it, and they are more likely to die from it. So, if you want to solve the problem, then solve it where it really exists.
The orgainization most responsible for the claim is the Brookings Institution, a large left-leaning think tank. Then, among many other media, the claim was picked up by:
The NAACP variation of the claim deserves special rebuke:
"5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites."
Instead of claiming that the rate of drug abuse is equal among the races, as is typically claimed, the NAACP takes the spin much further by failing to account for population share for the claim about racial differences in drug abuse but being perfectly responsible about the "rate" in the very next claim about racial differences in imprisonment, as though the author was consciously trying to mislead the reader about the racial differences.
But, even if they did claim that the rate of drug abuse was equal among the races, they would be wrong, due to a fallacy common to all of these publications: assuming that each race tells the truth about drug abuse equally.
The source data used to infer equality of drug abuse is the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the USDHS. Their data is collected "through face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of the population at the respondent's place of residence". No drug tests. They just ask, i.e. "Did you do crack cocaine in the past month? No? OK, moving on."
Problem: races do not tell the truth about drug abuse at an equal rate. This is no mere speculation. This is established fact well known among researchers. They know it, because in some studies the researchers first ask the subjects which drugs they have used in the past month, and then they administer a drug test. The results: most subjects of any race are truth tellers, but blacks are many times more likely than whites to lie to researchers about their past drug abuse. The 2005 study by Michael Fendrich and Timothy P Johnson, "Race/Ethnicity Differences in the Validity of Self-Reported Drug Use: Results from a Household Survey," showed that the concordances between the interview and the drug test for cocaine was 90% for blacks and 99% for whites, and for marijuana it was 87% for blacks and 100% for whites.
The 2008 study by Ledgerwood et al, "Comparison between self-report and hair analysis of illicit drug use in a community sample of middle-age men," tells the same story. So does Miyong and Hill's "Validity of self-report of illicit drug use in young hypertensive urban African American males," 2003. So does Fendrich and Xu's "The validity of drug use reports from juvenile arrestees," 1994. So does Golub et al's "The Variation in Arrestees' Disclosure of Recent Drug Use Across Locations, Drugs, and Demographic Characteristics," 2005.
It is an established scientific reality. Blacks are many times more likely than whites to lie to researchers about their past drug abuse.
Maybe blacks have a good excuse to lie to researchers, and they don't trust the researchers because they see the researchers as part of the white establishment who oppresses them, or something like that. But, there is no good excuse for uncritically passing along a very bad interpretation of the statistics. It should not be claimed that the rate of drug abuse is equal between whites and blacks. The most you can say is that the SELF-REPORTS of drug abuse are equal between whites and blacks. More reliable data about the racial differences in drug abuse does not come from arrest statistics nor does it come from self-reports. It comes from racial differences in hospital emergency room visits. See Table 35 on page 115 of the report of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Drug Abuse Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities," 2003, a table of drug related emergency room visits. It shows that blacks are 21% of all drug-related emergency room visits as of 2000, in spite of being 12% of the population. In 2011, it was worse: blacks are reportedly 31% of drug-related ER visits, in spite of being 13% of the population, according to Table 6 on page 30 of Drug Abuse Warning Network, 2011: "National Estimates of Drug-Related Emergency Department Visits," of the USDHS.
So, why should we care? We do not have to conclude from the drug abuse statistics that blacks are inherently more criminal nor inherently more susceptible to addiction. But, we should not be drawn into the myths for the sake of the ideological belief that the main problem is an unfair justice system. One way or the other, regardless of the cause, blacks really do abuse drugs much more often than whites. They are more likely to be arrested for it, and they are more likely to die from it. So, if you want to solve the problem, then solve it where it really exists.
