Rise in Drug Admissions to Treatment

SAMHSA Sees Rise in Drug Admissions to Treatment

More Americans are being admitted to addiction treatment for methamphetamine, prescription-drug, and marijuana use, while a smaller percentage of treatment admissions are for alcohol problems, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

SAMHSA's Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) 2006 Highlights report found that while alcohol abuse continues to be the most common reason for treatment admissions, admissions for alcohol treatment have fallen from 51 percent of the total in 1996 to 40 percent in 2006. During the same time period, admissions for meth, prescription drugs, and marijuana increased.

Admissions for methamphetamine use, for example, rose from 3 percent of all admissions in 1996 to 9 percent in 2006. Heroin admissions remained flat at about 14 percent during the decade studied, but admissions for abuse of prescription painkillers and other opiate-based drugs rose from 1 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2006.

Admissions for marijuana use increased from 12 percent in 1996 to 16 percent in 2006. As with methamphetamine, more than half of admissions for marijuana came via the criminal-justice system, which could partly explain the increase reported in the TEDS report.

TEDS includes treatment admissions data from publicly funded addiction-treatment programs. As reported Feb. 18, 2008.