The Black and White Issue of Substance Use: Crime in Color

              In 1971, William Cross coined the word Nigrescence, a French term that translates to “to become Black.” The idea was that Black individuals go through a process in which they shift from identifying with whiteness to internalizing positivity, comfort, and confidence in their identity of Blackness. This forced identification of whiteness calls back to the core of racist ideology in U.S. history, which is that whiteness is associated with greatness above all. If history has taught us anything, it’s that racism is widespread and prevalent, and our policies and responses to substance use weren’t the exception. Race impacted how dangerous we viewed drugs, what the laws and policing procedures were, the development of substance use, and rates of overdose.

How race impacts the “danger” of drugs:

When I was taught about prohibition in my small, rural, mainly white town, I was told it was organized by women as a way to keep their husbands from drinking and becoming violent. What I wasn’t told was how one of the most common ways to promote prohibition in the South wasn’t by discussions of domestic violence but rather through the depiction of a drunk black man, shown to be aggressive and sexual in nature. It turns out prohibition was incredibly important in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and allowed them to take on a role of policing in their communities. It was obvious the issue wasn’t alcohol in their case, as in some KKK raids the Klansmen would end it all by drinking the alcohol they seized, but rather in the power that the law allowed them to have over the minorities in their community.

After alcohol, it was cocaine. Cocaine when used by white individuals at that time was solely a pain medication, whereas black individuals are reported to take it for the exhilarating stimulant effects, at least that’s what Dr. Scheppergrell claimed. There is, of course, no actual evidence that white people only used the drug for medical purposes and that black people used it as a stimulant drug, but in 1914 the dangers of a drug were not based on facts or medical studies, but instead on who they believed was taking it. To make matters worse, what evidence we do have points to black workers being “encouraged” (forced) to take cocaine in order to endure their work conditions and increase their productivity.

How race impacts the law and enforcement:

              The belief that a drug is more dangerous in the hands of a black man than a white man still hangs in the air of today. It may not be as in our face as an endorsement from the KKK was, but we can see it in the arrest rates of black drug-related offenses and white drug-related offenses. As time has gone on, the courts have allowed for more and more invasive procedures to be conducted under the guise of a “stop and frisk” that border closer to an arrest. Stop and frisks, however, don’t require a warrant, all they need is “reasonable suspicion”. But we’ve already established how Blackness is viewed as inherently “suspicious” due to the racist foundations in our institutions, so one can see how a stop and frisk can quickly become racial harassment. This is precisely what happened. Stop and frisks at times occurred in a specific small geographic area. In one example given by Cooper (2015), a single 8-block area of a mainly Black and LatinX neighborhood in New York had approximately 52,000 stop and frisks conducted over 4 years. The neighborhood had a population of 14,000 people. 94% of the people stopped over those 4 years had committed no offense.

How race impacts substance use and overdose rates:

In addition to the macroaggressions the Black community faces, they also are subject to microaggressions. Racial microaggressions can present in several ways, but the two of biggest concern to substance use according to a study by Zapolski et.al. (2021) are assumptions of similarity microaggressions and microaggressions committed within school and work environments. The study conducted looked at Black students over 18 going to a Midwestern university and found that these forms of microaggressions explicitly increased risk for problem alcohol and cannabis use. Adding onto this issue is that some regional studies have found Black individuals who use opioids are less familiar with Good Samaritan Law protections than their white counterparts. However, given the established relationship with the police, even those who are aware of such protections may be fearful of calling emergency services. Overall, the increased risk of problem substance use over racial microaggressions and the racial disparities and violence in the relationship with law enforcement puts the Black community at greater risk of substance use and fatal overdose.

Conclusion:

Throughout history, race and substance use have been tied to one another, and it’s of great importance today to understand that relationship. The present does not change the past, but the past can inform the future. We encourage everyone to spend some time focusing on the under-told history of the Black community.

Sources:

Carstairs, C. (2000). “The Most Dangerous Drug”: Images of African-Americans and Cocaine Use in the Progressive Era. Left History, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.25071/1913-9632.5410

Cooper H. L. (2015). War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality. Substance use & misuse, 50(8-9), 1188–1194. https://doi.org/10.3109/10826084.2015.1007669

Harkley, A., McLellan, A., & Randall, M. (2002). Analysis of the Black Racial Identity Attitude scale in a substance-abusing population. Journal of the National Medical Association, 94(6), 459–471.

Walters, S. M., Kerr, J., Cano, M., Earnshaw, V., & Link, B. (2023). Intersectional Stigma as a Fundamental Cause of Health Disparities: A case study of how drug use stigma intersecting with racism and xenophobia creates health inequities for Black and Hispanic persons who use drugs over time. Stigma and health, 8(3), 325–343. https://doi.org/10.1037/sah0000426

Zapolski, T. C. B., Rowe, A. T., Clifton, R. L., Khazvand, S., Crichlow, Q. J., & Faidley, M. (2023). Examining the unique and additive effect of trauma and racial microaggressions on substance use risk among Black young adults. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 29(3), 289–301. https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000480