A critical perspective on cross-cultural contexts for addiction and multiculturalism: their meanings and implications in the substance use field.
Despite evidence of the antiquity and ubiquity of psychoactive substance use, much of the literature is devoted to addiction in minority ethnocultural subgroups. When researchers study drug use in isolated "primitive" communities, they consider drug use to serve as a mechanism of social integration; when they study drug use in ethnocultural subgroups in contact with mainstream society, they consider drug use as a marker, or sometimes as a cause of social disorganization. The implicit assumption appears to be that addiction and race, ethnicity, or other minority ethnocultural subgroup membership are linked, and more prevalent and/or more problematic in minorities, further problematizing the status of minorities. Empirical studies identified through ETOH, the U.S. National Institute of Alcohol and Alcoholism (NIAAA)'s Internet-accessible computerized database, were subjected to content analysis of their abstracts (n(abs) = 44) as well as actual reports (n(rep) = 40). It was found that the content of neither abstracts nor actual reports supported the contention that there was a greater prevalence of drug use, drug-use-associated problems, or drug-use-enhancing attitudes in minority ethnocultural subgroups when compared to mainstream society (chi2(abs) = 2.16, d.f. = 3, n.s., and chi2(rep) = 3.52, d.f. = 2, n.s. respectively). Researchers need to be aware of possible implicit assumptions about the relation between ethnicity and addiction.
Department of Economics, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. madrian@infi.net
Manuella
M
Adrian
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004335:Drug and Narcotic Control / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008913:Minority Groups / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011287:Prejudice; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs; D012933:Social Identification; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
D011619:Psychotropic Drugs