Have Illicit Drug Addiction/usage Rates Increased or Decreased Over the Years?
Question by mutterhalls: Have illicit drug addiction/usage rates increased or decreased over the years?
I am having trouble finding comprehensive statistics regarding drug use that go back a number of years. Any sources of information would be greatly appreciated.
Best answer:
Answer by Cliff Schaffer
The two surveys that cover this are Monitoring the Future and the Household Survey on Drug Abuse. An internet search will turn up various links to them. You will probably not find extensive stats that predate the Internet age.
Before you look for them, you should understand that there are a number of problems with the surveys.
The first is that people are not likely to answer a question honestly when someone asks them if they have recently engaged in criminal activity.
The second is that it depends on what you mean by increased or decreased. Drug use goes through various cycles and use of one drug may go up while another goes down.
The third is the time frame in which you ask. Again, drug use goes in cycles so you can expect to see rises in the use of some drugs for a while, with later falls in the same use. Depending on which years you pick, you would get an entirely different answer.
You should also note that when people attempt to answer this question it is often because they have a political agenda so they will pick whatever numbers suit their political point. If the numbers don’t suit their political point, then government officials are prone to just make up numbers to suit them.
If you look at the really long term there is an interesting picture. Prior to 1914, all of these drugs were legal and sold over the counter in the US without restrictions. Kids could buy the drugs as easily as they buy aspirin today and heroin was even included in baby colic remedies. Even under those conditions the rates of addiction were not substantially different than they are today.
If you want to understand the subject, the best place to start is the Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm This book details the history of the laws and describes the biggest single cause of drug epidemics. It is the one book to read it you read only one.
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