Latino Boys Using More Drugs

Qué tristeza.

A recent study from the Office of National Drug Control Policy found that drug use among Latino teen boys is rising. Specifically, drug use by this group rose from 9.2% in 2008 to 12.8% in 2009, according to the report, “2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” Although, an important caveat here, overall teen drug use increased during that time period.

The government, of course, is trying to deal with this by throwing money at it, when as some of our commenters have pointed out, if Latinos had well-paying jobs with benefits perhaps they wouldn’t be turning to drugs.

Drug use is a hard nut to crack, to be sure, but it’s not a surprise that, when things begin to go wrong, those at the bottom feel it more acutely and turn to drugs. The other group whose drug use increased was teenage African-American girls. This information suggests to me that that the economic strain in our country right now is particularly acute for these two groups; if you think about it these are both groups that are soon-to-be providers and, well, right now there’s really not a lot of ways to provide.