I'm trying to figure out the percentage of the population that does
not drink alcohol, but uses marijuana.  I would also like the results
categorized by race, particularly caucasian and asian.

Essentially, I would like the percentage of the Asian-American
population that regularly smokes marijuana, but does not drink
alcohol, and the same statistic for Caucasian-Americans. If you could
also include the general population statistic, that would be super.

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 05 Nov 2002 20:53 PST

Hello Lasketchup,

I just found where the statistics you are looking for may be found.
I'm just wondering if you're willing to pump up your bid a bit.
Thanks.

Good day Lasketchup,

Well, your question’s answer was easy to get, so here I’ll give it
anyway.

This look likes a very close site for the statistics you need:

Topics on SAMHSA’s Office of Applied Statistics
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/topics.htm

SAMHSA has statistics on drug abuse froma wide range of samples, such
as race, sex, and age. For example, let me quote a report on Marijuana
use among youth.

“Among marijuana treatment admissions for youth, 59 percent were
white, 23 percent were Black, 12 percent were Hispanic, 2 percent were
Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 2 percent were American Indian and Alaska
Natives.”

This came from the DASIS Report: Youth Marijuana Admissions by race
and Ethnicity
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/2k2/raceMJtx/raceMJtx.cfm

Table of Contents of the Prevalence of Substance Use Among Racial and
Ethnic Subgroups in the United States
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/NHSDA/Ethnic/httoc.htm

State Estimates of Substance Abuse from the 2000 National Household
Survey on Drug Abuse
http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/2kState/PDF/Vol1/OOSAERptVol1_W.pdf

The drawback is that no report says that the surveyed people were
non-alcoholics, but this so far is the best I can get.

Search string on Google:
drug abuse race statistics 

I hope this answer was satisfactory. 

Techtor

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Request for Answer Clarification by lasketchup-ga on 06 Nov 2002 13:55 PST

You are certainly right,
"The drawback is that no report says that the surveyed people were
non-alcoholics, but this so far is the best I can get."

Unfortunately, that was the statistic I was looking for.  I don't
really find this answer to be satisfactory, since it doesn't really
answer the question asked.

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Clarification of Answer by techtor-ga on 07 Nov 2002 01:07 PST

Greeting again, Lasketchup,

Thanks for the clarification. True, I did not touch upon that aspect
of your question. I thought looking for race statistics would satisfy
your request.

In a further search, I got the excerpt below, that doesn't focus on
marijuana only, but it gives an idea on how many combine drug use and
alcohol. When I look at admissions figures at SAMHSA, they give
figures per drug, not on people being treated per drug plus/minus
alcohol. I suppose this has not been considered important for archival
purposes. When you're addicted, you're a statistic, period.

"Among young adults aged 18 to 25, the rate of past month illicit drug
use was higher with increasing levels of past month alcohol use. Among
heavy drinkers, 44 percent had used illicit drugs in the past month
compared with 26 percent of "binge" drinkers (persons who had five or
more drinks on the same occasion at least once in the past month), 11
percent of nonbinge drinkers, and 5 percent of nondrinkers. This
association between heavy drinking and illicit drug use was found for
marijuana as well as for illicit drugs other than marijuana."

http://www.adolescent-substance-abuse.com/alcohol-young-adults.html

Let me just give other sources you might want to look up:

2000 Statistics on Alcohol and other drug use on American Campuses 
http://www.siu.edu/departments/coreinst/public_html/recent.html

Adolescent Substance Abuse Knowledge Base
http://www.adolescent-substance-abuse.com/statistics-drug-abuse.html

National Institute on Drug Abuse 
http://www.nida.nih.gov/DrugPages/Stats.html

AMERICA’S DRUG USE: FACTS AND STATISTICS
http://www.mediacampaign.org/mediatoolkit/mtk_fs_america.doc 

Search string:
marijuana alcohol use/usage statistics

I'll give this for now. If you are disssatisfied, you may ask for a
refund.

Techtor

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Clarification of Answer by techtor-ga on 17 Dec 2002 21:50 PST

I think I may have given you a dissatisfactory answer. If so, I can
ask for this answer to be taken off and another researcher may be able
to handle your question. Please inform me here if you agree to this.

You are looking for a source of data that does racial profiling, so
accuracy is likely to be low, as cost of high accuracy is very high. 
What people admit to is significantly different than what they
accually do. I will guess that 12% of all Asian Americans have smoked
more than 100 marijuana cigarettes in the past ten years. 16% have
consumed more than 1/4 ounce of alcohol= 1/2 ounce of strong whisky or
gin or 6 ounces of average beer on 100 separate occassions in the past
ten years. My guess is only slightly lower for Caucasian-Americans. I
think you can see the percentage changes considerably with changes in
criteria. Also many Americans are iffy as to which group you put them
in. If you exclude children under 5 the the percentages rise a little.
About half of the Marijuana smokers do not qualify as alcohol
drinkers.  Neil

Obtaining accurate statistics about alcohol use and abuse can be
difficult. See "Alcohol Research & Statistics: Deceptive Reports" at
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol-info/Controversies/1098894305.html