Monitoring the Future Data Indicates Increase in Drug Impaired Driving

While alcohol impaired driving rates among youth have declined in the United States, drug impaired driving appears to be on the rise. Research indicates illicit or prescribed drugs are associated with an increased rate of motor vehicle crashes, making current excessively high rates of drug impaired driving a significant public health concern. A recent study examining data from the Monitoring the Future survey found that just over one out of every four (28 percent) high school seniors either drove under the influence or drove with someone under the influence of alcohol or other illicit drugs, with the percentage of seniors driving after smoking marijuana was almost three times more than alcohol impaired drivers.

The March/April 2014 issue of Research Into Action breaks down the findings and highlights the need for coalitions to assess local impaired driving data in their communities and increase partnerships to create solutions to this public health issue.

More on the study and how local anti-drug coalitions can use the data to inform their efforts appears in the March/April 2014 issue of Research into Action. Download the PDF version of this publication or view this issue and previous issues on the CADCA website. 

Research into Action is a free publication, which reports on research findings that impact the work of coalitions. Published six times a year by CADCA’s National Coalition Institute, each issue examines what coalitions can do to implement knowledge they gain in their communities. Sign up for your free e-mail subscription on CADCA’s website by providing your e-mail address in the “Get Online News Updates” box located on the bottom right hand side of the CADCA homepage.

New Report Details America’s Billion Dollar Drug Problem

From 2000-2010, U.S. drug users spent $100 billion annually on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. That’s according to a new report, “What America’s Users Spend on Illegal Drugs: 2000-2010”, from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, conducted by the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. The report also found that while more money was spent on cocaine than marijuana in 2000, the opposite was true in 2010.

“Our analysis shows that Americans likely spent more than $1 trillion on cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine between 2000 and 2010,” said Beau Kilmer, the study’s lead author and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center.

Data further show that from 2002-2010, marijuana consumption likely increased by about 40 percent while cocaine consumption decreased by approximately 50 percent. Heroin consumption remained fairly stable from 2000-2010. Methamphetamine consumption dramatically increased during the first half of the decade and then declined, but researchers lacked the information to make a credible estimate of its use from 2008-2010.

“Having credible estimates of the number of heavy drug users and how much they spend is critical for evaluating policies, making decisions about treatment funding and understanding the drug revenues going to criminal organizations,” Kilmer said. “This work synthesizes information from many sources to present the best estimates to date for illicit drug consumption and spending in the United States.”

The estimates for marijuana are rooted in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which surveys nearly 70,000 individuals each year. Estimates for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine are largely based on information from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program (ADAM). The final estimates also incorporated information from other data sources.

However, since the federal government recently halted funding for ADAM, researchers say it will be considerably harder to track the abuse of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine in the future.
To improve future estimates, the report recommends investments in programs like ADAM that collect detailed data from heavy users. It also recommends that federal agencies revise some of the questions on existing self-report surveys.

Click here to read more about the report.

First National Analysis Strongly Associates E-Cigarettes with Smoking for Many Adolescents

E-cigarettes, promoted as a way to “quit” regular cigarettes, may actually be a new route to conventional smoking and nicotine addiction for teenagers, according to a new University of California at San Francisco study published online today in JAMA Pediatrics.

In the first analysis of the relationship between e-cigarette use and smoking among adolescents in the United States, U.C.S.F. researchers found that adolescents who used the devices were more likely to smoke cigarettes and less likely to quit smoking. The study of nearly 40,000 youth around the country also found that e-cigarette use among middle and high school students doubled between 2011 and 2012, from 3.1 percent to 6.5 percent.

“Despite claims that e-cigarettes are helping people quit smoking, we found that e-cigarettes were associated with more, not less, cigarette smoking among adolescents,” said lead author Lauren Dutra, a postdoctoral fellow at the U.C.S.F. Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, in a news release.

“E-cigarettes are likely to be gateway devices for nicotine addiction among youth, opening up a whole new market for tobacco,” she added.

In the new UCSF study, the researchers examined survey data from middle and high school students who completed the National Youth Tobacco Survey in 2011 and 2012.

The authors found that the devices were associated with higher odds of progression from experimenting with cigarettes to becoming established cigarette smokers. Additionally, adolescents who smoked both conventional cigarettes and e-cigarettes smoked more cigarettes per day than non-e-cigarette users.

Contrary to advertiser claims that e-cigarettes can help consumers stop smoking conventional cigarettes, teenagers who used e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes were much less likely to have abstained from cigarettes in the past 30 days, 6 months, or year. At the same time, they were more likely to be planning to quit smoking in the next year than smokers who did not use e-cigarettes.

The study’s cross-sectional nature didn’t allow the researchers to identify whether most youths initiated with conventional cigarettes or e-cigarettes. But the authors noted that about 20 percent of middle school students and about 7 percent of high school students who had ever used e-cigarettes had never smoked regular cigarettes – meaning that some kids are introduced to the addictive drug nicotine through e-cigarettes, the authors said.  

“It looks to me like the wild west marketing of e-cigarettes is not only encouraging youth to smoke them, but also it is promoting regular cigarette smoking among youth,” said senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, U.C.S.F. professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that the majority of adolescents who have ever smoked e-cigarettes also have smoked regular cigarettes. An estimated 1.78 million U.S. students have used the devices as of 2012, the CDC reported.