Drug Abuse the Relationship Between Drug Use

Drug Abuse The relationship between drug use and economic status has been one looked at research for decades. However, the topic is a complex one to consider because significant research and commentary today suggests that the older studies showing such a relationship may have had significant bias, in the form of assumptions, built into their research design.

One of the largest assumptions has been that members of minorities use drugs in an effort to escape the problems of depressed economics and racism, as well as a way of making money in communities where few opportunities for well-paying jobs exist (Covington, 1997). These beliefs, critics maintain, are revealed in research when phrases such as "high-risk youth," "underclass drug user" or "hard-core drug user" as used as descriptors. However, this criticism itself may reflect some bias, since "hard-core user" in particular cannot be tied to any racial group.

However, critics point out that attention regarding drug use is often focused on minority youth, and are often described in terms of economic factors (unemployment or welfare), social factors such as single-parent families typically headed by women, or presence of crime and poverty as evidence of "social breakdown." (Covington, 1997) While the critics might or might not be right about such bias in research, he makes a case for these factors being used as preliminary assumptions in some research design.

It's not that neighborhoods, which tend to encapsulate people of similar backgrounds and financial circumstances, have no effect on drug use at all. Rather, it is that many factors affect drug use, making it hard to determine which factors influence which groups of people and under which circumstances. Allison et. al. (1999) summarize several reports drug use becoming common in minority, economically depressed neighborhoods within urban areas. However, this does not necessarily mean that economically depressed neighborhoods are typically more prone to drug use by its residents.

Research that does show a tie to economic factors and substance abuse are also tied to other factors. In addition to the neighborhood being economic depressed, as indicated by such things as childhood poverty rate and economic resources present within the community, amount of vacant housing and ratios of rented homes to occupant-owned homes, and unemployment rates, these communities were influenced by other issues, such as poor educational facilities and high rate of school dropouts (Allison et. al., 1999).

Thus, while some relatively recent research attempts to look at economic factors, separating out economic vs. other possible causes for drug abuse remains a significant research design problem. In fact, while economic factors are implicated in some research, other factors seem to have more influence over which young people use drugs, including the effects of accessibility to support for drug use in the youths' schools (Allison et. al., 1999). Interestingly, some recent research suggests that demographics, including economic status, account for only a small influence when predicting who might use drugs.

The contribution was only 5% and was not statistically significant (Allison et. al., 1999). However, this study determined socio-economic status by looking at the educational level of the mother without defending this choice (Allison et. al., 1999). Such an indirect approach only makes it more difficult to determine how useful the statistical results are. Perhaps because of the difficulty of separating economic factors from other influences when people choose to use illegal drugs, most economic studies have looked at the economic impact of drugs.