Demographic Factors in Opiate Addiction among Mexican-Americans

Abstract

VARIOUS empirical studies have estab- lished the necessity for considering sex, race, culture, and the geographic region of resi- dence when describing any population of ad- dicts.Bates (1) and Chambers and associates (2) have provided descriptions of Negro ad- dicts.Ball (3), Ball and Snarr (4), and Ball and Pabon (5) have described Puerto Rican addicts.Ball and Lau (6) provided a description of the Chinese addict.Southern white addicts have been the subject of extensive inquiry by O'Donnell (7)(8)(9) and O'Donnell and associates (10).Glaser (11) and Cham- bers and associates (12) have described fe- male addicts, while Ball and associates (13) and Ellingwood and associates ( 14) have com- pared male addicts with female.Noticeably ab- sent, however, is any definitive description of the Mexican-American opiate addict. Research DesignOur study was designed to provide empirical data on contemporary Mexican-American ad- dicts and on recent changes-if any have occurred-within the population of Mexican-American addicts.To accomplish these aims, data were analyzed on admissions of addicts to the Lexington and Fort Worth clinical re- search centers during the first 6 months of 1961 and 1967.During the first 6 months of 1961, a total of 1,745 addicts were admitted either to Lexington or Fort Worth.Of these, 102, or 5.8 percent, were Mexican-Americans (table 1).During the same 6 months of 1967, a total of 1,438 addicts were admitted to the two hospitals, of whom 169, or 11.8 percent, were Mexican-Americans.All statistical comparisons and descriptions were accomplished with these two populations.For description and comparison, we grouped the attributes available for analysis into three categories-(a) social characteristics, (b) characteristics associated with addiction and re- lated deviancies, and (c) characteristics as- sociated with hospital admis ion.Wherever possible and whenever appropriate, sex was treated as an independent variable.Of the 102 Mexican-American addicts ad- mitted during the 1961 sampling period, 14, or 13.7 percent, were females (table 2).During the 1967 period, only 10, or 5.9 percent of the 169 Mexican-Americans admitted for treatment, Dr. Chambers, now director of narcotic addiction research, New York State Narcotic Addiction Control Commission, at the time of the study was the re- search director of the narcotic addict rehabilitation prograrn of the West Philadelphia Community Men-