Random Facts
| According to "Spain Drug Situation 2000," a report prepared for the European Union's European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction, "In 1999, 3.1% of those members of the Spanish population aged between 15 and 64 had tried cocaine at some time during their lives and 1.5% in the last year (DGPNSD 2000a). Consumption levels are appreciably higher among younger people, the 15 to 29 age interval having prevalence levels of 4.5% and 2.8% respectively for the same periods of time. The early ages at which cocaine use begins is confirmed by the fact that in 1998, 4.8% of Spanish students aged between 14-18 had consumed it at some time during their lives and 4.1% in the last year (DGPNSD 2000d)." (DGPNSD 2000a: Delegacion del Gobierno para el Plan Nacional Sobre Drogas, Encuesta Domiciliaria Sobre Use do Drogas 1999, Ministerio del Interior. 2000d: DGPNSD, Encuesta Sobre Drogas a Poblacion Escolar, Minsterio del Interior.) Source:
Report to the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction by the Reitox National Focal Point of Spain, Plan nacional sobre drogras, "Spain Drug Situation 2000" (Ministerio del Interior and EMCDDA, Madrid, Spain: November 2000), pp. 18-19. |
| duced causes in the United States (Tables 21 and 22). This category 'drug-induced causes' includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of legal or illegal drugs, but also poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use, as well as newborn deaths due to the mother’s drug use." Source:
Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009, p, 11.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf |
| "In every year since 1991, the rate of confirmed AIDS has been higher among prison inmates than in the general population (figure 1). At yearend 2004 the rate of confirmed AIDS in State and Federal prisons was more than 3 times higher than in the total U.S. population. About 50 in every 10,000 prison inmates had confirmed AIDS, compared to 15 in 10,000 persons in the U.S. general population." Source:
Maruschak, Laura M. "HIV In Prisons, 2004," NCJ-213897 (Washington, DC: Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Nov. 2006), p. 5. |
| "In the HLM (Hierarchical Linear Modeling) analyses for students in grades eight, 10, and 12, drug testing (of any kind) was not a significant predictor of student marijuana use in the past 12 months. Neither was drug testing for cause or suspicion." Source:
Yamaguchi, Ryoko, Lloyd D. Johnston & Patrick M. O'Malley, "Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies," Journal of School Health, April 2003, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 163. |
| "A recent survey of syringe exchange provision in the UK suggested that in 1997 an estimated 2,320,000 syringes were distributed by approximately 2,300 outlets in England, Scotland and Wales (J. Parsons, personal communication). No syringe exchanges in Northern Ireland were identified. Syringe exchanges distributed large numbers of syringes and are probably in contact with more injecting drug users than any other intervention." Source:
Report to the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction by the Reitox National Focal Point of the United Kingdom, DrugScope, "United Kingdom Drug Situation 2000" (London, England: DrugScope and EMCDDA, 2000), p. 45. |
| "Adverse drug reactions are a significant public health problem in our health care system. For the 12,261,737 Medicare patients admitted to U.S. hospitals, ADRs were projected to cause the following increases: 2976 deaths, 118,200 patient-days, $516,034,829 in total charges, $37,611,868 in drug charges, and $9,456,698 in laboratory charges. If all Medicare patients were considered, these figures would be 3 times greater." Source:
C. A. Bond, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, and Cynthia L. Raehl, PharmD, FASHP, FCCP, Department of Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Amarillo, Texas, "Adverse Drug Reactions in United States Hospitals" Pharmacotherapy, 2006;26(5):601-608.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/531809 |
| "Based on responses to the 2004 NDSHS, 38% of Australians aged 14 years and over had used any illicit drug at least once in their lifetime, and 15% had used any illicit drug at least once in the last 12 months. "Marijuana/cannabis was the most common illicit drug used, with one in three persons having used it least once in their lifetime and 11% of the population having used it in the previous 12 months. "Recent illicit drug use was most prevalent among persons aged between 18 and 29 years in 2004, with almost one in three people (31%) in this age bracket having used at least one illicit drug in the last 12 months. "The proportion of the population who had used any illicit drug in the last 12 months fluctuated between 1991 and 2004, reaching a similar level in 2004 (15%) to the prevalence in 1993 (14%). While the proportion of people who had recently used marijuana/cannabis (11%) was the lowest seen in the 13-year period, the proportion using ecstasy (3%) was the highest prevalence for that substance in the same period. "Ecstasy and related drugs were commonly used by 12–24-year-old Australians in 2004. The most prevalent drugs from this group were ecstasy and meth/amphetamines, with 7% of persons in this age group having used each substance in the last 12 months. In particular, the highest recent use of ecstasy (13%) and meth/amphetamines (11%) were reported by 20–24-year-olds." Source:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2005. Statistics on drug use in Australia 2004. AIHW Cat. No. PHE 62. Canberra: AIHW (Drug Statistics Series No. 15), pp. xv-xvi. |
| "According to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the number of current (past-month) heroin users in the United States increased from 136,000 in 2005 to 338,000 in 2006. The corresponding prevalence rate increased from 0.06 to 0.14 percent. There were 91,000 first-time users of heroin aged 12 or older in 2006, down from 108,000 reported in 2005. Among persons aged 12 to 49, the average age at first use of heroin was 20.7 years." Source:
National Institute on Drug Abuse, InfoFacts: Heroin (Rockville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services), from the web at http://www.nida.nih.gov/infofacts/heroin.html last accessed Sept. 18, 2008. |
| In 2008, 5.4 percent of 12th graders reported daily use of marijuana, up slightly from 5.1% in 2007. This compares with 6.0% in 1999 and 4.9% in 1996. Also in 2008, 24.6% of twelfth graders reported having had 5 or more drinks in a row in the last two weeks, the lowest reported percentage in the last 18 years. This 2008 rate continued a downward trend from a high of 31.5% in 1998. Finally in 2008, 5.4% of twelfth graders reported smoking 1/2 pack or more of cigarettes daily, again the lowest reported percentage in the last 18 years. This level of cigarette consumption by twelfth graders peaked in 1997 at 14.3%. Source:
Johnston, L. D., P.M. O'Malley, J.G. Bachman & J.E. Schulenberg, Monitoring the Future National Results on Adolescent Drug Use: Overview of Key Findings 2006, (Washington, DC: NIDA, April 2007), Table 4, p. 59. |
| "Black and Hispanic Americans, and other minority groups as well, are victimized by disproportionate targeting and unfair treatment by police and other front-line law enforcement officials; by racially skewed charging and plea bargaining decisions of prosecutors; by discriminatory sentencing practices; and by the failure of judges, elected officials and other criminal justice policy makers to redress the inequities that become more glaring every day." Source:
Weich, Ronald H., and Angulo, Carlos T., Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, "Justice on Trial: Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System" (Washington, DC: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, May 2000), p. vi. |