Use of Cocaine Down, Marijuana Up Across the United States

Use of Cocaine Down, Marijuana Up  Across the United States

A February 2014 report on What America’s Users Spend on Illegal Drugs From 2000-2010 was prepared for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy by the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, CA. The research study concluded that cocaine use fell by about half, while use of marijuana jumped by more than 30 percent across the United States from 2006 to 2010. Heroin use remained fairly stable. Consumption of methamphetamine increased significantly during the first half of the decade, before declining.

In this study of illegal drug use nationally, the RAND Drug Policy Research Center estimates that Americans spent about $100 billion annually on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine during the ten year period from 2000-2010.

The report notes that Americans spent much more on cocaine than on marijuana in 2000, but that spending pattern had reversed by 2010. This study did not cover the recent increases in heroin use, or effect of current laws legalizing recreational use of marijuana in the states of Colorado and Washington. 

“Our analysis shows that Americans likely spent more than one trillion dollars on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine between 2000 and 2010,” said Beau Kilmer, the study’s leading author and co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. He noted that the increase in use of marijuana appears to be related to a rise in the number of people who report using the drug every day or nearly every day.

According to Kilmer, the report cited information from many sources to gather and assess the number of heavy drug users and how much they spend to present the best estimates to date for illicit drug consumption and spending in the United States.

Figures for marijuana use were taken from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Information from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program (ADAM) was used to estimate use of cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine. Researchers also went on to report that the federal government recently stopped funding for ADAM, and as such it will be much more difficult to track the abuse of these drugs in the future.

Sources:  The Partnership at Drugfree.org (www.drugfree.org) and Health Day (www.consumer.healthday.com)