Jamie Moran
May 6th, 2017
Analytic Essay
Professor Shaw
Substance Use by Teenagers and the normalization of substance use:
A Symbolic Interaction Perspective According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), by the time an adolescent is a high school senior they have tried some type of substance. The NIDA states, that 70 percent of the high school population has tried alcohol, 40 percent will have smoked a cigarette, and more than 20 percent will have used a prescription drug for nonmedical purposes (NIDA). Even though the use of substances has declined among teenagers, the use of these substances can lead to a long-term impact in their lives and the influence from popular culture does not help teenagers stray away from these substances
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Bachman hypothesizes that the impact of drug abuse is felt more towards the African American community, followed by the Hispanic community and the Native American community. The problem that they had during this time is that the patterns of drug use by the members of this community are not well documented. Bachman intends to find the extent to which drug use varies regarding racial/ethnic subgroups of high school seniors. The author wants to find out if there has been a difference among these subgroups and to find out the differences if there are any. He concluded that Native Americans had the highest prevalence rates for cigarettes, alcohol, and most illicit drugs. The next ethnic/race group that had the highest substance use was White students. The two lowest race/ethnic groups that had the least amount of use of drug are Asian and Black students but not regarding marijuana. Hispanic groups were in the middle range expect that they have the highest use of cocaine use among the male population. The trend patterns that he noticed were that they were all the same among the subgroups but that cigarette use declined more rapidly towards Blacks than Whites seniors,