Abstract
Substance abuse is still a major social problem in the United States given that it affects individuals, families, and society in general. Normally, people abuse illicit drugs and misuse prescription drugs so that they can achieve alteration in moods for pleasure and recreational purposes.
Evidently, the drugs that people abuse most in the United States are marijuana, alcohol, heroin, amphetamines, cocaine, steroids, and prescription drugs. Statistics show that about 20 million Americans abuse drugs out of which the youth having the ages of 21-25 forms the majority. Moreover, the most abused drug is marijuana, while the American Indians comprise the race that has the highest number of people who abuse drugs when compared with other races.
Common factors that predispose people to drug abuse are social, economic, and recreational factors. Despite the negative impacts of drugs on health, family, and society, people continue to abuse them. Thus, this research paper found out that the youth is a group in American population, which bears the most effects of substance abuse.
American Society Affected by Substance Abuse
Substance abuse entails regular use of drugs by an individual with a view of achieving pleasure through mood alteration. Drug use and abuse starts as a pleasurable activity, but with time it becomes a “disease”, which unfortunately is killing thousands and breaking numerous families across the world and especially in the United States.
One can abuse either illegal drugs, prescription drugs, or over-the-counter drugs. In the aspect of illegal drugs, substance abuse entails regular use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin for recreational purposes of gaining pleasure. In contrast, in the aspect of prescription drugs, substance abuse involves regular use of the drugs without approval of medical professionals or the use of over-the-counter drugs for the wrong purposes.
Hence, drug abuse conventionally entails the use of illegal drugs and misuse of prescription drugs or over-the-counter drugs as recreational substances that enable people to gain pleasure by altering their moods. In the United States, drug abuse is a national issue because it leads to addiction coupled with causing serious health problems for substance users.
This research paper discusses substance abuse in the United States coupled with how it affects American society with a view of discovering which group of the American population suffers most from it. This research hypothesizes that the youth is the most affected group by drug abuse in the American population.
One of the most commonly abused substances in the United States is marijuana. However, the issue of marijuana abuse is now controversial than ever given that some states like Washington and Colorado have decriminalized the use of the substance.
With proponents of marijuana legalization always keeping pressure on the authorities to legalize the drug, many people have questioned the supposed negative effects of the same, and thus the majority of substance users have used marijuana, which remains an illicit drug in many US states, in altering their moods.
Substance users may ingest marijuana by way of food products or they may smoke it. Smoking is the dominant mode of consumption in the United States. The prevalence rates of marijuana use among the youth peaked in 1990s when it reached about 51 per cent.
The cause of the high prevalence of marijuana abusers is due to the availability of the drug. Despite concerted efforts to reduce the abuse of marijuana, “in 2011, 38 per cent of 8th graders, 68 per cent of 10th graders, and 82 per cent of 12th graders reported it as being fairly or very easy to get” (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2011, p. 12). Thus, the availability of marijuana has predisposed many youths to drug abuse in the United States.
Alcohol is a substance that people consume as a beverage. It has a chemical substance called ethanol, which is responsible for altering the moods of drinkers. Alcohol ranks third as the popular beverage after water and tea respectively. Alcohol comprises wines, spirits, and beers.
Wine is a product that results from the fermentation of fruit juices such as grapes; it has low ethanol content of about 10 to 15 percent. Spirit is a product of distillation that results from fermented starch, and it has high ethanol content of more than 20 percent. Beer is the most common alcoholic beverage, which is a fermentation product of malted grains with ethanol content of about 5 percent.
Usually, alcohol is a legal beverage in most countries in the world, although governments have set stringent laws that regulate the production, sale, and consumption in various jurisdictions. In the United States, the laws are not as stringent; therefore, Americans overuse alcohol, which subsequently leads to alcoholism.
Heroin is an illicit substance derived from a poppy plant. Substance users use heroin by smoking, injecting, or sniffing, as they are the effective routes of administration that enhance rapid action of the drug in the brain. The United States government is struggling to eliminate heroin. Drug traffickers normally deal with heroin because they gain huge profits by selling it to the substance users who are mainly criminals.
Given that injection is the preferred route of administration, users often share needles. Hence, heroin use predisposes users to infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Among youths, the prevalence rate of heroin abuse is about 1 percent, while among adults it is slightly higher (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2011). Over the decades, the prevalence rates have been declining in the United States, which implies that government interventions have helped in countering the problem.
Amphetamines fall under the category of controlled substances, which require a prescription from a medical professional. Amphetamines are psychotherapeutic drugs, and people may begin abusing them in order to stimulate their brains. In the United States, “the use of amphetamines rose in the last half of the 1970s, reaching a peak in 1981, two years after marijuana use peaked” (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2011, p. 22).
The abuse of amphetamines led to the discovery of methamphetamines in 1980s. Methamphetamine crystallizes to form ice, but users later heat it to release fumes. They then inhale the fumes, which gives them a pleasurable experience as the drug stimulates the mind. Methamphetamine has contributed to the problem of drug abuse in the United States because it does not only affect health of users, but also the control of prescription drugs.
Cocaine is an illicit drug that has dominated the list of drugs that people abuse in the United States. Trafficking cocaine is one of the booming businesses in the US, which explains why drug traffickers take the risk of engaging in the business. Drug traffickers deal with cocaine in illegal markets, thus availing the drugs to the people. Although the government has enough measures in place to eliminate its abuse, drug traffickers have devised new schemes of distributing cocaine.
Even teenagers can access cocaine because of its ready availability in the markets. According to Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, and Schulenberg (2011), a significant proportion of students at 12th grade confessed that they could easily access and use cocaine, which means that cocaine is easily available in the United States to the extent that even 12th graders can afford to access, buy, and abuse it. As a result, cocaine is one of the dominant substances that most people have abused in the United States.
Steroids fall in the category of prescription drugs that require approval of a doctor for one to use. Athletes and body builders normally take steroids to enhance muscle development, which gives them a competitive edge over other athletes.
Thus, some athletes abuse steroids without seeking approval from their doctors. The most recent case of use of steroids by American athletes is the July 2012 ruling, which stripped Crystal Cox and Adam Nelson of their medallions that they won in the 2004 Olympics held in Athens. These two athletes are just but an indication of an underlying problem in the field of drug abuse. Steroids are illegal and pose serious health risks for users.
Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, and Schulenberg (2011) assert, “steroids are similar to most other drugs studied here in two respects: they can have adverse consequences for the user, and they are controlled substances for which there is an illicit market” (p. 42). Despite the fact that steroids have harmful health effects and are illegal, athletes and body builders have continued to abuse them in the United States.
Statistics show that about 20 million Americans regularly abuse drugs. This trend has been escalating due to the accessibility of drugs by users. The youth is the dominant group of drug abusers because 8 per cent of them consume drugs, when compared to adults who have less than 5 per cent consumption rate.
Drug abuse varies with age as drug abuse trends indicate that youths between ages of 18 and 20 have the highest rates of substance abuse, which is about 22 percent. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), “through the adolescent years from 12 to 17, the rates of current illicit drug use in 2009 increased from 3.6 per cent at ages 12 or 13 to 9.0 per cent at ages 14 or 15 to 16.7 per cent at ages 16 or 17” (2010, p. 16).
Moreover, young adults having ages of 21 to 25 have 20.5 per cent consumption rate, while those having ages of 26 to 29 have consumption rates of 14 percent. Among adults having the ages of 30 and above have less than 7 per cent consumption rates.
These statistics show that consumption rates of illicit drugs are highest among the youth who fall in the age bracket of 21 to 25. This trend hinges on the fact that youth are adventurous and they are willing to take the risk of experimenting with any thing they come across including drugs.
Conventionally, statistics show that rates of illicit drugs consumption are higher among males than females. According to SAMHSA (2010), “in the total population aged 12 or older, the rate of current illicit drug use among males increased from 9.9 per cent in 2008 to 10.8 per cent in 2009, but females’ rates for the 2 years did not differ significantly” (p. 22). The difference may be due to a predisposition to substance abuse.
Since men can more easily access drugs as compared to females, they have higher rates of consumption than females. Significant gender variation of substance abuse occurs among the youth within the age bracket of 12 to 25. While males show high consumption rates of marijuana, females show high rates of painkillers and psychotherapeutic drugs usage. Overall, men show higher rates of substance abuse than women do.
Among women, there is also a variation in the rates of substance abuse. Pregnant women show lower rates of substance abuse than non-pregnant women do. Pregnant women who are in the age bracket of 15 to 44 have 4.5 per cent rate of substance abuse, but non-pregnant women in the same age bracket have about 20 per cent rate of substance abuse.
“Among women aged 15 to 17, however, those who are pregnant and those who are not pregnant do not differ significantly in their rate of illicit drug use” (SAMHSA, 2010, p.22). This aspect shows that young pregnant women abuse drugs more than adult pregnant women.
Abuse of drugs among Americans also varies according to their races and ethnicities. Drug abuse rates are highest among American Indians and lowest amongst Asians. According to SAMHSA, abuse rates of drugs are 3.7 per cent among Asians, 9 per cent among African Americans, 7.9 per cent among Hispanics, and 18 per cent among American Indians.
The trends have been increasing exponentially among American Indians and Hispanics in the past two years, which underscores an increasing variation in drug abuse depending on the prevailing social, legal, and cultural conditions. In the future, predictions show that drug abuse will be more of a social issue rather than a cultural one because of the impact of globalization on the cultural values of various races and ethnicities.
Drug abuse also varies among substance abusers according to their education level. “Among adults aged 18 or older, the rate of current illicit drug use is lower for college graduates (6.1 percent) than for those who did not graduate from high school (10.2 percent)” (Weintraub, & Wood, 2010, p.5).
In essence, statistics show that adults who have low educational level are more likely to abuse drugs in their lifetime than those who have high level of education. This implies that education level is a significant predictor of substance abuse within the American population. Therefore, by extrapolating the statistics from uneducated adult drug abusers, it suffices to conclude that young people who abuse drugs mostly are the ones having low education level and fall in the age brackets of 15 to 25 years.
The major reason why women abuse drugs is to alter their moods. Rich women abuse drugs in an effort to find pleasure. Drugs alter the moods of individuals, thus making them to feel good and relaxed, hence a source of pleasure. In contrast, poor women abuse drugs so that they can relieve stress and trauma. According to Boyed (1993), women abuse drugs because of their historical backgrounds “as women who have been sexually abused often demonstrate low self-esteem, depression, and self-destructive behaviors” (p.434).
Since women face tremendous social and economic issues in the society, drug abuse relieves them from stress. Moreover, women normally abuse prescription drugs such as painkillers because they often experience pains associated with their medical conditions. Thus, women can either abuse drugs for pleasure, to relieve stress, and or medical reasons.
Men also abuse drugs as a means of seeking pleasure. Drugs cause changes in moods, thus making individuals experience good moods and savor the pleasurable moments. Additionally, cultural factors influence men to abuse drugs like alcohol because some cultures consider alcohol abuse as an integral part of life. Social and economic conditions also predispose men to abuse drugs since they experience stress and trauma in the course of the lives.
Statistics shows that drug abuse varies according to economic status and level of employment. “Among adults aged 18 or older, the rate of illicit drug use was higher for unemployed persons (17.0 percent) than for those who were employed full time (8.0 percent) or part time (11.5 percent)” (SAMHSA, 2010, p. 25). Therefore, poverty predisposes men to drug abuse since they experience a great deal of challenges in their lives, which hinder them from enjoying life, thus compelling them to seek pleasure by abusing drugs.
Since children do not understand the effects of drugs on their health, they plunge into drug abuse because of peer pressure. Research has shown that students start abusing drugs when they are still in high school because they learn from their peers. Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, and Schulenberg (2011) assert that most of the students in 8th and 12th grades confess that they learned to abuse drugs from their peers.
As children observe what their elders do, they begin to experiment in the process of learning about drugs. After learning, they experiment as peers, thus compelling other students to abuse drugs. Through experimentation, children often find themselves hooked on drugs, which leads to addiction. Eventually, drug abuse destroys their education because they cannot learn well due to addiction and constant dependency on drugs.
When one abuses drugs, he or she starts exhibiting some signs associated with the drug usage. Drugs usually cause emotional changes, thus making users to change their moods depending on the nature of the abused substance. According to the World Health Organization (2004), drugs affect the neurological mechanism of the body, thus influencing physical activity of the users.
For example, alcohol has physical impacts on the regulation of motor neurons, hence making an individual to stagger. Marijuana and steroids also enhance physical strength of the users. If an individual exhibits unusual physical activities such as staggering or great strength, there is a high probability of drug abuse. For athletes who exhibit extra-ordinary powers during athletic activities, there is a probability of steroids or other drug usage, which boosts the physical capacity of their bodies to perform certain activities.
Substance abuse causes behavioral signs that one can easily note. A person who has abused drugs behaves differently from one who has not abused any drug. Changes in behavior are quite evident among drugs abusers. For instance, among people who abuse drugs, they exhibit behaviors such as staggering while walking, poor communication, and are oblivious of their environment. Moreover, substance abusers lose their social skills and thus are unable to relate with other people.
Drugs like cocaine, marijuana, and heroin have depressing effects, which sedate individuals (World Health Organization, 2004). In the workplace, individuals are unable to perform their normal duties or relate with other people because drugs influence their behavior. On the family level, drug abuse has caused many families to break, as men who often abuse drugs tend to abuse their wives and children.
Drugs have serious psychological impacts on individuals. Individuals who consume drugs usually do not have sober minds as drugs affect the central nervous system, spinal cord, and brain, thus leading to poor transmission of impulses from and to the brain. Drugs are psychoactive substances that can depress or stimulate the brain.
Depressants are drugs such as alcohol, while stimulants are drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamines. According to the World Health organization (2004), psychoactive substances have a different mode of actions in influencing psychological functions for “they bind to different receptor types, and can increase or decrease the activity of neurons through several mechanisms” (p. 17). Thus, people can either express depressed or stimulated feelings after taking drugs.
Substance abuse has harmful effects on the health of women. Studies show that women are more sensitive to drugs as compared to their male counterparts. Women cannot tolerate the same amount of drugs that men take. The amount of alcohol that women consume is less than the amount that men consume before becoming drunk. This aspect implies that the physiological mechanism of metabolizing alcohol is slow in women when compared to that of men.
According to Boyed (1993), “when compared to male substance abusers, women substance abusers display significantly more affective disorders” (p. 434). Moreover, substance abuse affects pregnant women. Consumption of drugs causes complications such as low birth weight, miscarriage, placental abruption, and premature labor. Consequently, pregnant women should avoid consuming drugs for they have harmful effects on their bodies and babies.
Drug abuse has physical and physiological harmful effects on men. Physically, drugs weaken the ability of men to perform physical activities. Men who consume drugs have lower productivity in their work places than those who do not consume drugs because drugs deteriorate the mental and physical health of an individual. Physiologically, drug abuse has severe health impacts in terms of addiction and dependency.
Men who abuse drugs regularly become addicted to drugs. Acute intake of drugs causes intoxication, which threatens the life of the user. Consumption of alcohol in large quantities overwhelms the functions of the liver in detoxification, thus causing intoxication, which eventually leads to death or causes other complications of health. Additionally, abuse of drugs lowers the fertility rate of men; hence, drugs contribute to the infertility.
Among teens and children, drug abuse has harmful impacts on their health. Since children are still developing, drugs affect their physical and psychological development. In the physical aspect, drugs deteriorate the health of children, which in turn affects their growth and development.
Psychologically, children who abuse drugs experience psychological problems, which prevent them from learning normally in school. Evidently, research has shown that children who abuse drugs report poor performance in their academics (Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, and Schulenberg, 2011). Drugs cause psychological disturbances, which prevent children from concentrating in their studies. Like adults, drug abuse also leads to addiction and dependency, thus ruining the lives of children because they cannot pursue their careers optimally.
Drug abuse has significant influence on family as a basic unit of any society. Families have a noble role of shaping values, behaviors, and attitudes of children while instilling moral principles necessary for their maturity. However, the emergence of drug abuse among parents pushes parents into neglecting their parenting duties.
Due to the lack of proper parenting, children adopt bad practices and behaviors that are against moral principles of society. By staying with parents who abuse drugs, children can acquire the same behaviors, consequently destroying their lives (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2008). Therefore, drug abuse results into poor parenting, which compels children to acquire ill behaviors learned from their peers and other people.
Drug abuse destabilizes families because it contributes to separation or divorce. Many families have broken up due to drug abuse. When a husband or wife abuses drugs, it creates disagreements in the families, which eventually leads to divorce or separation. Studies show that many single families exist across the United States due to separation and divorce that stems from drug abuse.
Many parents are struggling to overcome addiction and dependency problems of drug abuse, which are threatening their families (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2008). Hence, drug abuse is a social issue that threatens the stability of families in the modern society.
Drug abuse affects the health status of the community members. Health is a social issue that affects people in society. As the healthcare system is struggling to eliminate factors that contribute to poor health among community members, drug abuse is one of the significant health determinants.
Due to health impacts, abuse of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco contributes to approximately five million cases of deaths annually (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2008). Other drugs like heroin and cocaine also cause intoxications, which result into death. Therefore, drug abuse is a considerable factor that determines the health of individuals and the community at large.
Drug abuse also has considerable impacts on the literacy levels of students. Students who abuse drugs tend to drop out of school because they are unable to cope with learning demands. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2008), students who abuse drugs have intellectual impairments due to poor perception, sensory, emotional, and social development, which impairs learning in the classroom. As a result, if drug abuse is unregulated, it implies that students will not complete their studies and pursue careers of their choice; hence, increasing illiteracy levels in society.
Drug abuse has economic implications because drugs cost a great deal of resources that would have otherwise served other functions. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (2008) asserts, “Drug abuse and addiction are major burdens to society; economic costs alone are estimated to exceed a trillion of dollars annually in the United States” (p.1).
Drug users spend a considerable part of their fortunes in buying expensive drugs that they hardly afford because of addiction and dependency. If families spend significant resources in drug abuse, it means that limited or no resources remain for development, thus plunging families into poverty. In this view, it means that drug abuse is a factor that contributes to poverty in the society.
Since drug abuse is illegal, governments usually arrest and incarcerate drug users, which cause an increase in the prison population. Prison populations have been increasing in the last decades, making the criminal justice system consider applying other alternative processes of correction to reduce the population of prisoners. The United States government spends a lot of money in incarcerating and rehabilitating prisoners who have abused drugs.
A research study conducted in California showed, “Alcohol and drug users, in the year prior to entering a treatment program, cost the taxpayer $3.1 billion per year, that is, on average, $22,800 per heavy drug abuser in 1991” (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2008, p. 16). Currently, the costs of incarcerating and rehabilitating drug abusers have increased tremendously. Additionally, the criminal justice system uses many resources in cracking down drug traffickers in the United States.
Given that drug abuse has detrimental effects on the health of individuals, poor health leads to low productivity in the workplace. People who abuse drugs underperform in the workplace because drugs have a negative impact on their physical and mental health.
Young people within the age bracket of 15 to 35 years are the dominant users of drugs, yet they are the most productive. Hence, if drug abuse reduces their productivity, it implies that families, communities, and society will suffer great economic losses because they cannot utilize their human resources optimally.
In today’s society, unemployment rates are high and labor markets are very competitive. In this view, drug users would never attain meaningful employment as employers shy away from employing them. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2008), unemployment rates are higher among drug users than in people who do not abuse drugs.
Drug abuse also affects the cultural fabric of the society by encouraging the emergence of criminal activities. Although all cultures discourage the development of criminal behaviors in the society, drug abuse works in the opposite direction. Studies show that a society that abuses drugs provides breeding places for criminal activities, because addicts opt to commit crime to meet the demands of the drugs that they need to abuse.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2008), drug abuse causes cultural changes by degrading cultural values and principles that hold societies together. Current society and governments are striving to mend the societal fabric and restore cultural values that have been promoting development of good behaviors among the youth, thus discouraging drug abuse in society.
Additionally, drug abuse shapes cultures by decreasing productivity of its members. Every culture promotes hard work among its members, but drug abuse contributes to poor development of human resources who are unable to maintain moral values and ethics in society. As aforementioned at the start of this paper, drug abuse is a “disease” and conventionally sick people cannot be productive; therefore, drug users, who in most cases end up as addicts, cannot be productive members of the society.
In essence, they increase the burden of dependency because they have to be taken care of, which requires for time and resource. As parents assume the cultural and conventional responsibility of bringing up their children in line with societal and cultural values, drug abuse contributes to not only negligence, but also the motivation of children to abuse drugs.
From a cultural perspective, “substance abuse strains family relationships and ultimately turns families dysfunctional; thus transforming families from an asset of society into a burden” (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2008, p. 30). Therefore, drug abuse causes cultural changes by influencing ethical values and principles at the family, community, and societal levels.
Women recover differently from drug abuse as compared to their male counterparts. Women face numerous problems in the society, which emanate from parenting, family responsibilities, financial demands, and employment. Normally, women experience depression, stress, physical disorders, and poor coping skills, which complicate their recovery process from drug addiction and dependency.
Conventionally, women are delicate as they involve emotions in almost that they do; unfortunately, emotions come with passion and this aspect complicates the entire issue of drug abuse, addiction, and recovery by women. Fortunately, Walitzer and Dearing (2006), note that although the recovery process of women is slow, they do not experience relapse, because they adhere to treatment plans and follow instructions. Therefore, women require social support for them to recover well from drug addiction and dependency.
In drug addiction and dependency, men recover faster than women do because they have unique abilities that allow them to overcome problems associated with drug abuse.
When taken through the process of rehabilitation, men recover quickly as they do not have many confounding variables that surround family life, which predispose them to drug abuse. “Men and women respond very differently to marital stress and conflict and to interpersonal conflict, and this may be a result of differences in partner drinking levels” (Walitzer, & Dearing, 2006, p. 145).
The differences in responses determine predisposition to drug abuse. Essentially, men consume more drugs to become addicted than women do, thus making their recovery process complicated. Moreover, men are prone to relapse during recovery because they do not adhere to the rehabilitation or treatment plan. In this view, men require intensive rehabilitation and treatment plan for them to recover well and avoid relapsing.
Teens and children normally recover well during rehabilitation. However, the extent of recovery is dependent on the stage of addiction, dependency, and age. Children who have not become addicted or dependent on drugs can easily recover. Since children can easily change their habits of drug abuse, they require support from family, friends, and other people like counselors.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2008), poor parenting plunges children into drug abuse because peer pressure has immense influence on the development of children. Hence, recovery of children is subject to social support that they receive.
In the aspect of gender, men suffer most in drug abuse because a significant number of them abuse drugs in the United States. Statistics show that men who abuse drugs double the number of their female counterparts (McCabe, Morales, Cranford, Delva, McPherson, & Boyd, 2007).
Moreover, men abuse illicit drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, and heroin, which pose more harm to one’s health than other drugs such as alcohol and prescription drugs that women consume. Thus, most young males suffer from the harmful effects of the drugs on their health.
When compared to teens, men experience much harm in drug abuse. The population of young males who abuse drugs is higher than that of teens or children. Usually, teens and children abuse drugs as experimental or for pleasure. Furthermore, children use drugs in small amounts that do not quickly lead to addiction or dependency. Unlike men who use large quantities of drugs, which eventually push them into drug addiction and dependency.
According to McCabe, Morales, Cranford, Delva, McPherson, and Boyd (2007), marijuana disorders are highest among young men than among women and children. Fundamentally, young males suffer the most in drug abuse when compared to women and children.
Between youth and women, youth suffer most from drug abuse because a significant number of them abuse drugs. “American young adults between 18 to 29 years of age have the highest past-year prevalence rates of marijuana use, abuse, and dependence relative to older age groups” (McCabe, Morales, Cranford, Delva, McPherson, & Boyd, 2007, p. 76). Due to peer influence, children find themselves abusing drugs without knowing the dangers associated with drug abuse, thus destroying their lives.
Drug abuse usually varies from one ethnicity or race to another. Statistics shows that the rate of drug abuse in the US is 18.3 per cent for American Indians, 9.6 per cent for African Americans, 8.8 per cent for the whites, 7.9 per cent for the Hispanics, and 3.7 per cent for Asians (SAMHSA, 2010). This trend indicates that American Indians suffer most in drug abuse while Asians experience minimal harm.
Drug abuse is a pertinent issue in the United States because it has serious social, economic, and cultural consequences on the society. In spite of concerted efforts made by the American government to crack down drug trafficking, the problem of drug abuse continues to threaten societal morals and values.
Since drug abuse varies according to gender, race, and age, this research paper shows that the group of people who suffer most due to the consequences of drug abuse is the young American Indians. Conclusively, this research paper accepts the hypothesis that the youth is the group that suffers most from effects of drug abuse in the American population.
References
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