| Report #4 | 7/10/97 (formatted for the web 6/20/03) |
Some of the Drugs
America Takes STATISTICS:
| Drug
| Number of People in America Who Used the Drug in the Past Month1
(Millions)
| # of Past Month Users Per 1000 People in America2
| 1990: # of U.S. Deaths3
| 1990: Estimated Deaths per 100,000 Users4
| | 1. Heroin | .2  | 1 | 2,806 | 1,403 | | 2. Amphetamines/Meth | .8 | 3 | 280 | 35 | | 3. Cocaine/Crack | 1.5 | 6 | 3,526 | 235 | | 4. Marijuana/Hashish | 10.0 | 38 | 296 | 3 | | 5. Nicotine/Tobacco | 61.0 | 230 | 400,000 | 656 | | 6. Alcohol | 110.0 | 414 | 100,000 | 91 | | 7. Caffeine | 130.0 | 490 | 76 | 0.06 |
| 1 | TIME, May 5, 1997, "Addicted" by J. Madeleine Nash, pp. 69-72 | | 2 | The numbers were obtained by dividing the number of persons in the U.S> who used each drug in the past month by the total U.S. population of 265,283,783 as of July 1, 1996 and multiplying the total by 1,000. Population figures are from Populations Division, U.S. Bureau of Census, Washington, D.C.; numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number. | | 3 | Deaths figures taken from "marijuana's Contribution to Preventable Deaths in the U.S. in1990," report published by Steven C. Markoff. Note the drug categories for death figures are similar to but not exactly the same as those listed in source report. For example, figures for marijuana also included hashish, amphetamines include methamphetamine and speed, cocaine figures also include crack and nicotine figures are taken from amounts listed as tobacco. | | 4 | Numbers obtained by dividing the number of U.S. deaths associated with each drug by the number of past month users of each drug as reported in the TIME article "Addicted" by J. Madeleine Nash (see footnote 1 above) and multiplying the total by 100,000. |
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Compiled & Published by Steven C. Markoff |
