African American families may also be more vigilant in restricting alcohol use among their youth due to awareness of the particularly negative consequences associated with drinking for African Americans (Peterson et al., 1994). As we noted above, African Americans simply do experience more negative consequences from alcohol use (e.g., financial hardship, health problems, and problems with the law) than European Americans (Grant, 1997). The same is true for African American youth compared to their European American peers (Stewart & Power, 2002). The recognition that problems are likely to occur from consuming alcohol may motivate members of the African American community to work to restrict consumption. Thus, it may not be surprising that African American youth are not only less likely to use alcohol compared to their European American peers, but are less likely to use all types of illegal substances (i.e., marijuana, inhalant, cocaine, hallucinogen, opioid, stimulant, tranquilizer: Johnston, O’Malley, Bauchman, & Schulenberg, 1997; Wu, Woody, Yang, Pan, & Blazer, 2011).
