Gretchen --
   There are lots of differences in drinking by ethnicity.  This is true botrh 
between societies and for ethnicities within a multicultural society. 
   The general rule for social class is that there are more abstainers among 
poor people. Among those who do drink at all, poor drinkers tend to have higher 
rates of drinking to intoxication.
   Among those who do drink to intoxication or drink a lot, the poor tend to 
end up with more health or social trouble -- you might say they are less able 
to insulate themseleves from the health and social effects.   are more likely 
   Heavy drinking is moralized in most societies, and poor heavy drinkers are 
often stigmatized and marginalized.  Marginalized heavy drinkers account for 
more than their share of premature mortality. 
   This is the short version, unreferenced.  I will send you off-list a long 
paper, as yet unpublished, four of us wrote for WHO on this.
   On the epidemiology of drinking in Mexico, check for the names Maria-Elena 
Medina Mora and Guillermo Borges.   
      Cheers, Robin 


On 2007-05-21, at 03:55, Gretchen Pierce wrote:
> Dear Group,
>
> As a historian I feel woefully inadequate when it comes to what 
> scientists, anthropologists, etc. have said about the subject of 
> alcohol addiction.  I know that Mexican temperance reformers in the 
> 1920s and 30s believed that indigenous and working-class people drank 
> more than others, and they believed that science validated their ideas. 
>   But my question is: what do modern scienticists say about this?  Is 
> there any propensity to consume alcohol based on class or ethnicity?  
> It seems highly prejudiced to me, but I could be wrong.  Any good works 
> that you could point me to?
>
> Thanks,
> Gretchen
>
> Gretchen Pierce
> Adjunct Instructor
> Indiana University Northwest
> Ph.D. Candidate
> University of Arizona