Monday, November 04, 2013

Do we want to increase the use of drugs in the USA? Will legalizing marijuana reduce drug use in the USA? Top 10 Facts About The U.S. Illegal Drug Market

Top 10 Facts About The U.S. Illegal Drug Market | Zero Hedge
formal and informal data paints a slightly less-fuzzy and, to some degree, larger picture of the market. Here’s the top 10 that we found, in no particular order:






1. Say what you want about the 1960s and 1970s, but the current decade has logged the heaviest drug use per person per year in the history of the United States. 23.9 million Americans aged 12 or older – 9.2% of the entire population – were “current users” (i.e. had used in the past month) of an illicit drug in 2012, the latest data available from the CDC shows. That’s up from 7.1% in 2001, and more than double the rate of 1969’s 4% (according to a 1969 Gallup poll). But the “peace and love” decades aren’t totally free of blame. The youngsters that seemed to have pioneered increasing drug usage in the 60s and 70s are apparently still at it today: 7.2% of those aged 50-54 reported illicit drug use within the past month, compared to 6.6% of those 55-59 and 3.6% of those 60-64. Each of these figures is more than double the respective rates recorded in 2002. Use of illicit drugs among those 12-17, meanwhile, is dropping, while usage in the “young adult” community of 18-25 has been rather stable at around 21.3%.

2. The most “Typical” drug user is apparently an 18-25 year old male living in the urban South, based on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The South is the biggest drug consuming region in the country by sheer numbers with 7.5 million current users, according to the National Sur

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