Associating drugs and race

Abstract

African Americans constitute 13% of the total US population yet account for 31% of drug arrests and close to 40% of those incarcerated in either state or federal prisons for drug related crimes, mostly possession (Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), 2017). However, Caucasians are just as likely to use drugs as African Americans (NAACP, 2017). University students were surveyed to see if they held an explicit racial bias regarding who they perceived as using, manufacturing, and selling drugs. Multiple paired t-tests were conducted comparing AA, CA, and their answers on crack-cocaine and powdered cocaine. Their findings are that AA coke users are rated lower (M =22.37%, SD = 8.26) compared to CA cocaine users (M = 35.21%, SD = 14.4) (t = -5.694, p = .000). Another paired T-test showed that AA were rated higher crack-cocaine criminals (M = 32.26%, SD = 15.7), with CA being rated lower (M = 26.84%, SD = 12.42) (t = 2.237, p = .029). These findings indicate that African Americans are associated with crack-cocaine more so than other races and Caucasians are associated with powdered cocaine more so than any other race. This indicated that discriminatory policy, enforcement of said policy, and cultural forces may have influenced the attitudes of Salisbury University students into making them believe that one group (African Americans) are far more likely to be involved in deviant behavior involving an crack-cocaine.