cannabisnews.com: Survey Says 60,000 In D.C. Are Addicts 





Survey Says 60,000 In D.C. Are Addicts 
Posted by FoM on September 20, 2001 at 09:11:01 PT
By David A. Fahrenthold, WP Staff Writer
Source: Washington Post
About 60,000 District residents -- more than one in 10 -- are addicted to illegal drugs or alcohol, D.C. health officials have concluded after a door-to-door survey.The survey of 15,035 households, conducted last December, is the most comprehensive snapshot of substance abuse ever taken in the city, D.C. government officials said. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) plans to release the study at a news conference today and announce a goal of reducing the number of addicts by 25,000 by 2005.
Drug addiction "needs to be looked at as the 800-pound elephant in the room," said Larry Siegel, head of the District's Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration. "The community needs to decide, once and for all, that this is intolerable."In the representative sample that was surveyed, about 8.9 percent said they were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Siegel's staff then added in estimates of the numbers of homeless and institutionalized people addicted to drugs or alcohol to come up with a final figure of roughly 10.5 percent of the city's population. The national rate of dependence, based on a 1999 house-to-house survey by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, is about 4.7 percent. In that study, federal officials estimated a 4.1 percent dependence rate in Virginia and a 4.7 percent rate in Maryland.A 1997 study by Maryland's state government estimated that 65,185 Baltimore residents were addicted to alcohol or drugs, or 10 percent of that city's 2000 population.The house-to-house survey was the first such study in the District. Local drug treatment experts said yesterday that the findings rang true."We've always said there were about 60,000 people dependent," said Renee Lohman, of Washington Behavioral HealthCare, which helps coordinate local substance abuse and mental health care. "It's not getting better."The study found that marijuana was the most commonly used illegal drug in the District, with about 7 percent of those 12 and older having used it in the past month. Next came cocaine, which about 2 percent reported using in the last month. Less than 0.4 percent reported using heroin in the last month.District residents were far more likely to be addicted to alcohol than illegal drugs. Nearly 29,000 residents have an alcohol addiction, according to the survey, compared with the 10,400 dependent on marijuana.Among youth ages 12 to 17, one in six reported having had an alcoholic beverage in the month before the interview. Anita Bellamy Shelton, who heads the Hillcrest Children's Center in Northwest, said her experience suggests that youth drinking is on the rise."The sleeper is the increase in alcohol among youth," said Bellamy Shelton, whose organization treats children for mental-health and substance-abuse problems. She said children progress from beer to hard liquor quickly. "It's like a social thing, and then it's every day," she said.The survey found that 11.5 percent of blacks had used an illegal drug within the past month, compared with 7.3 percent of Hispanics and 6.6 percent of non-Hispanic whites. The rate of drug use ranged from 14.1 percent in Ward 2, centered on Southwest and including neighborhoods such as Georgetown and Shaw, to 2.7 percent in Ward 3, in far Northwest.But whites were the racial group most likely to have used drugs at least once in their lifetime -- with 61 percent of white respondents answering "yes" to that question. The percentage was 41.1 percent for blacks and 16.9 percent for Hispanics."For a while, we've been burying our heads in the sand about the extension of the problem across racial and ethnic lines," Bellamy Shelton said. "This is an equal-opportunity disease."Tackling the problem will be the work of a mayoral task force appointed in March and headed by Siegel and D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. Today's news conference, at a new methadone clinic on N Street NE, will highlight one of the fields that Siegel says needs improvement: treatment for addicts hooked on heroin and other opiates.Siegel said he hopes to focus the District's anti-drug efforts on treatment, expanding beyond the city's 8,000 treatment beds for drug and alcohol abusers."I consider the waiting list to be 52,000 people," Siegel said, referring to the rest of the 60,000 thought to be addicted.The study, conducted for the D.C. government by private contractor Westcon International, also found high rates of tobacco use in the District. About three in 10 District residents said they had smoked a cigarette in the last year, and about one-quarter had smoked in the last month.Note:  1 in 10 Dependent on Alcohol, Drugs. Source: Washington Post (DC) Author: David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff WriterPublished: Thursday, September 20, 2001; Page B01 Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company Contact: letters washpost.com Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Related Articles:A Quagmire for Our Time - American Prospect http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10426.shtmlInto Intoxication - National Post http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10325.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Post Comment