Drug War Facts: Drug use estimates

Drug facts

Drug use estimates

DRUG WAR FACTS
compiled by Kendra E. Wright and Paul M. Lewin
for Common Sense for Drug Policy, http://www.csdp.org/ 

Updated: December 1, 1998


77 million Americans have used an illicit drug at least once in their
life.

 Source:  Department of Health and Human Services, National Household
 Survey on Drug Abuse: Population Estimates 1997, Washington D.C.:  U.S.
 Government Printing Office (1998), p. 17.

In the past year, 24 million Americans have used an illicit drug. 18
million of these Americans are White, 3 million are Black, and 2 million are
Hispanic.

 Source:  Department of Health and Human Services, National Household
 Survey on Drug Abuse: Population Estimates 1997, Washington D.C.:  U.S.
 Government Printing Office (1998), pp. 17, 18.

It is estimated that 1.4 million Americans have used crack cocaine in the
past year. Of those 1.4 million, 910 thousand are White, 340 thousand are
Black, and 85 thousand are Hispanic.

 Source:  Department of Health and Human Services, National Household
 Survey on Drug Abuse: Population Estimates 1997, Washington D.C.:  U.S.
 Government Printing Office (1998), pp. 35-37.

The chart below shows the results of the National Household Survey on
Drug Abuse for 1997. It is important to note that the survey finds very slight
use of  `hard drugs' like cocaine, heroin and crack. In some cases the numbers
are so small that past month use and frequent users (defined as 51 or more
times per year) are not even tracked by the national survey.

Substance	Ever Used	Past Year	Used in Past Month	Frequent Users
Alcohol	177 million	139 million	111 million	49 million
Cigarettes	152 million	71 million	64 million	not tracked
Marijuana	71 million	19 million	11 million	6.4 million
Cocaine	23 million	4 million	1.5 million	0.7 million
Crack	4 million	1 million	0.6 million	not tracked
Heroin	2 million	0.6 million	not tracked	not tracked

Source:
Department of Health and Human Services, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Population Estimates 1997, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office (1998).

National Household Survey on Drug Abuse http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/nhsda/pe1997/httoc.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Available online at: http://www.csdp.org/factbook/
Questions, comments or suggestions for additions and modifications
may be addressed to the Paul Lewin at: csdp@csdp.org

To stay informed, we recommend the DrugSense Weekly Newsletter;
http://www.drugsense.org/nl/