Past and Current Trends

Past and Current Trends

PSY 425

September 26, 2016

Professor Denise Land

Past and Current Trends

        According to The National Institute on Drug Abuse (2015) website, illicit drug use in the United States is on the rise.  This should not come as a surprise to anyone, as one only need to read the daily paper or watch the evening news to routinely see stories regarding an individual’s overdose death or the arrest of yet another drug dealer.  Not only is the use of illicit substances on the rise, so are the health problems associated with them, such as death.  A recent crisis occurred in Cincinnati, where over two hundred people were treated for overdose in a two-week period, with three people losing their lives.  It was determined that the heroin they used was mixed with Carfentanil, an extremely powerful opioid, most commonly used as an elephant tranquilizer (Healy, 2016).  Most modern day societies consider illicit substances to be taboo, but there are some cultures that continue to use some of these substances as they have for thousands of years.  This paper will explore these topics.

        Despite popular belief, drug use was actually rare in the 1960’s.  According to Robison (2002), only 4% of Americans admitted to using marijuana in a Gallup poll.  By 1977, however, 24% of Americans admitted to the consumption of marijuana.   In the 1980’s, cocaine had gained a strong foothold in America, mostly due to the fact that it was cheap and plentiful.  The 1990’s saw stabilization amongst users of marijuana and a decrease in illicit substance use, such as LSD, heroin and cocaine.  The late 1990’s, however, saw methamphetamine and “club drugs”, such as ecstasy make their appearance (Robison, 2002).  

        According to the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 24.6 million Americans over the age of 11 (9.4%) had tried illicit substances in the past month, an 8.3% increase from 2002 (The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).  The marjority of this increase can be attributed to the rising marijuana use, which is the most widely abused illicit substance.  Marijuana use increased from 5.8% of the United States population (14.5 million) in 2007, to 7.5% (19.8 million) in 2013, and it continues to be the first illicit substance used by more than half of first time users.  This is followed by prescription pain relievers and then inhalants (The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).  Most other illicit substance use remained stable from 2003 to 2013.  6.5 million Americans (2.5%) admitted to using prescription medications for non-medical purposes during the past month.  Hallucinogens (including ecstasy and LSD) use encompassed 1.5 million Americans (0.5%).  Cocaine use declined from 2.4 million users in 2007, to 1.5 million users in 2013 (The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).  Methamphetamine saw an increase from 353,000 Americans admitting to using in the past month in 2010, to 595,000 using in 2013.  A trend that has not changed is most users of illicit substances first use when they are in their teens.  In 2013, it is estimated that 2.8 million individuals used illicit substances for the first time, with 54.1% being under the age of 18 (The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).  The rates for more socially accepted illicit substances, such as tobacco and alcohol abuse, have seen recent declines.  In 2013, 21.4% of the United States population reported that they smoked.  This is a decrease from 26% in 2002.  Alcohol dependence was at 6.6% in 2013, down from 7.7% in 2002 (The National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2015).