Treatment Admissions Rise for Narcotic Painkillers
According to a new report from SAMHSA's Drug and Alcohol Services
Information System (DASIS), treatment admission rates for abuse
of narcotic painkillers more than doubled between 1992 and 2000.
The proportion of new users of narcotic painkillers (those entering
treatment within 3 years of beginning use) increased from 30 percent
in 1997 to 41 percent in 2000.
In addition, between 1997 and 2000, the number of treatment admissions
involving narcotic painkillers increased for all ages, especially
among people age 20 to 30.
In 1992, five states had an admission rate for narcotic painkillers
of 24 per 100,000 (age 12 and older). By 1997, 11 states had admission
rates that high. By 2000, 21 states had narcotic painkiller admission
rates of 24 or more per 100,000. Rates were particularly high in
New England, where they ranged from 12 per 100,000 people in New
Hampshire, to 63 per 100,000 in Connecticut, to 120 per 100,000
in Maine.
The characteristics of admissions for abuse of narcotic painkillers
changed very little between 1997 and 2000. More than half of these
admissions (56 percent) were male, and more than 80 percent were
white.
Narcotic painkiller admissions include all admissions reporting
primary, secondary, or tertiary abuse of substances such as oxycodone,
codeine, dilaudid, morphine, demerol, and any other drug with morphine-like
effects.
To obtain a copy of the DASIS report, Treatment Admissions
Involving Narcotic Painkillers, contact SAMHSA's National Clearinghouse
for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI) at P.O. Box 2345, Rockville,
MD 20847-2345. Telephone: 1 (800) 729-6686 (English and Spanish)
or 1 (800) 487-4889 (TDD).
SAMHSA's Office of Applied Studies recently released another short
report on treatment admissions for narcotic painkillers based on
data gathered in a range of localities. These data show that between
1992 and 2000 the greatest increases in treatment admissions involving
these drugs occurred in areas outside large central metropolitan
areas.
Treatment Admissions in Urban and Rural Areas Involving Abuse
of Narcotic Painkillers Treatment is also available from NCADI.
Both reports can be downloaded from the SAMHSA
Web site at www.oas.samhsa.gov.
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