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Chapter I.
Changing Patterns of Drug Use in America

D. Emerging Illegal Drug Threats

Cocaine and marijuana have long been America’s most frequent drugs of abuse. In recent years, however, other substances have become increasingly serious threats to Americans, including young Americans. Among these emerging threats are heroin and methamphetamine.

1. Heroin

Studies estimate that there are 810,000 chronic users of heroin (defined as those who use heroin 51 or more day per year) in the United States. Injection remains the most common means of administration, particularly for low-purity heroin. However, the increasing availability of high-purity heroin has made snorting and smoking more common, thereby lowering inhibitions to use. Among lifetime heroin users, the proportion who had ever smoked, sniffed, or snorted heroin increased from 55 percent in 1994 to 63 percent in 1995, and 82 percent in 1996.

Heroin initiation rates have risen dramatically since 1992

Heroin Initiates (1000s)
figure 3
Figure 3
Source: 1997 Household Survey

The growing use of heroin by young people is an alarming recent trend. According to the Monitoring the Future study, while still low, the rates of heroin use among teenagers rose in eighth, tenth, and twelfth grades during the 1990s. For example, for twelfth graders, the prevalence increased from 0.9 percent in 1991 to 2.0 percent in 1998 and this increase was highly statistically significant. The 1997 NHSDA found that the mean age of initiation declined from 26.2 years in 1988 to 18.1 in 1996. Communities throughout the country are experiencing the results of increased heroin abuse. Plano, Texas, had eleven heroin-overdose deaths in 1997; many of the victims were children. Orlando, Florida saw forty-eight heroin deaths in 1995 and 1996; ten victims were twenty-one years of age or younger.

2. Methamphetamine

The 1997 NHSDA estimated that 5.3 million Americans (2.5 percent of the population) tried methamphetamine in their lifetime, up insignificantly from 1994, when 1.8 percent of the population had ever used methamphetamine. The National Institute of Justice's (NIJ) 1997 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Annual Report on Adult and Juvenile Arrestees (which regularly tests arrestees for drug use in twenty-three metropolitan areas) reports that methamphetamine use continues to be more common in the west, southwest, and midwest United States than in the rest of the nation. Between 1992 and 1994, positive rates for methamphetamine among adult arrestees rose steadily in eight cities (Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, and San Jose), reaching as high as 44 percent in San Diego and 25 percent in Phoenix in 1994. While the rates fell significantly for the next two years -- to 30 percent in San Diego and 12 percent in Phoenix -- 1997 data shows that methamphetamine use has returned close to 1994 levels.