User:SamWest123/sandbox

According to NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug. NIDA collects its information from an annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health and is conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The most recent statistics on drug use come from the 2010 survey. The most common illicit drug, marijuana, has risen from 8.3% in 2002 to 8.9% in 2012. An estimated 22.6 million Americans over age 12 have used marijuana in the past month. The survey indicated that use is on the rise each year. After marijuana, the closest drug following is psycho-therapeutics at 7%. As for use in the last month, the survey showed cocaine at 1.5%, hallucinogens at 1.2%, inhalants at 0.7% and heroin at 0.2%.

Cocaine, psychotherapeutics, hallucinogens and heroin usage rates have remained pretty steady over the last decade and are mostly on the decline. The highest rate of drug use is 23.1% found among 18-20 year olds. The second age group to use drugs most commonly are 21-25 year olds and then 16-17 year olds at 16.6%. For the first time in history, more teenagers smoke marijuana than those who smoke Cigarettes. Second to alcohol, marijuana has the highest rate of dependence and abuse compared to all other drugs. The 2010 statistics showed that 4.5 million Americans met clinical criteria for dependence or abuse of marijuana in the past year. That is more than twice the number of people depending on or abusing pain relievers. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, almost one million visits were made to the emergency room due to drug-related incidents. This is either alone or in combination with other drugs. Marijuana accounted for 376,467 of this visits. Cocaine was involved in 422,896 visits. The rates are higher in males and the majority of the visits were persons aged 21 or older.

NIDA. (2012). https://www.google.com/search?q=growing+use+of+marijuana+nida