Alcohol and Drug Abuse Statistics
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Statistics
Alcohol is the oldest drug around. It is also the most widely-used and almost 50 percent of people aged 12 and over have consumed alcohol in the United States. Most people are able to consume alcohol responsibly. However, for one reason or another, some people abuse alcohol and develop addictions. Drug information from the American Council for Drug Education (ACDE)states that approximately 10 to 15 million people in the United States can be classified as alcoholics. About 4.5 million of those people are adolescents. Alcohol dependence will affect 17 percent of men and 8 percent of women at some point in their lives. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 79,000 deaths per year are the direct result of excessive alcohol consumption. It is the third leading cause of death (life-style related) in the nation and the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. In 2005, excessive alcohol caused 4 million emergency room visits and 1.6 million hospitalizations. About 2,000 people under the legal drinking age (21) die annually in car crashes due to alcohol and it is involved in nearly 50 percent of all teen deaths involving violence. Drug abuse is also a major concern for the country. According to the latest drug information from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug abuse costs the United States over $600 billion annually in health care treatments, lost productivity, and crime. This breaks down to $181 billion for illicit drugs and $235 billion for alcohol. In 2009 alone, over 2.1 million visits to the emergency department were related to drug abuse, as follows: * Non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs (27 percent) * Illicit drug use (21 percent) * Combination of alcohol with drugs (14 percent) * Eighty percent of patients were 21 or older * Over 420,000 of the visits were related to cocaine use * The most common drug combination was alcohol and central nervous system depressants (over
Alcohol is the oldest drug around. It is also the most widely-used and almost 50 percent of people aged 12 and over have consumed alcohol in the United States. Most people are able to consume alcohol responsibly. However, for one reason or another, some people abuse alcohol and develop addictions. Drug information from the American Council for Drug Education (ACDE)states that approximately 10 to 15 million people in the United States can be classified as alcoholics. About 4.5 million of those people are adolescents. Alcohol dependence will affect 17 percent of men and 8 percent of women at some point in their lives. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 79,000 deaths per year are the direct result of excessive alcohol consumption. It is the third leading cause of death (life-style related) in the nation and the leading cause of death for people aged 15 to 24. In 2005, excessive alcohol caused 4 million emergency room visits and 1.6 million hospitalizations. About 2,000 people under the legal drinking age (21) die annually in car crashes due to alcohol and it is involved in nearly 50 percent of all teen deaths involving violence. Drug abuse is also a major concern for the country. According to the latest drug information from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), drug abuse costs the United States over $600 billion annually in health care treatments, lost productivity, and crime. This breaks down to $181 billion for illicit drugs and $235 billion for alcohol. In 2009 alone, over 2.1 million visits to the emergency department were related to drug abuse, as follows: * Non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs (27 percent) * Illicit drug use (21 percent) * Combination of alcohol with drugs (14 percent) * Eighty percent of patients were 21 or older * Over 420,000 of the visits were related to cocaine use * The most common drug combination was alcohol and central nervous system depressants (over