NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE EPIDEMIOLOGIC ...

EPIDEMIOLOGIC TRENDS IN DRUG ABUSE—Minneapolis/St. Paul
Drug Abuse Trends in Minneapolis/St. Paul
Carol Falkowski 1
ABSTRACT
Drug abuse-related mortality in the Twin Cities
metropolitan area remained stable in 2004. Most
accidental overdose deaths involved opiates or cocaine.
In hospital emergency departments, (unweighted)
reports involving cocaine outnumbered
those involving any other illicit drug. Methamphetamine
remained a major focus of law enforcement.
For the first time, methamphetamine addicts
accounted for almost 10 percent of patients entering
metropolitan area addiction treatment programs.
More patients sought treatment for marijuana than
for any other illicit drug (21.3 percent of total admissions),
and one-half were younger than 18. The
abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and MDMA (ecstasy)
among metropolitan area high school seniors declined
from 2001 to 2004, according to the Minnesota
Student Survey. Still, alcohol remained the
number one drug of abuse among adolescents, with
60 percent of high school seniors reporting drinking
in the past year. At area hospital emergency departments,
623 reports (unweighted) involved underage
drinking in 2004, and one-half of all admissions
to addiction treatment programs were for alcohol.
INTRODUCTION
This report is produced twice annually for participation
in the Community Epidemiology Work Group of
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, an epidemiological
surveillance network comprised of researchers
from 21 U.S. areas who monitor trends in drug abuse,
using the most recent data from multiple sources.
Area Description
The Minneapolis/St. Paul, “Twin Cities,” metropolitan
area includes the city of Minneapolis (Hennepin
County), the capital city of St. Paul (Ramsey
County), and the surrounding counties of Anoka,
Dakota, and Washington. According to the 2000 census,
the population of the metropolitan area is
2,482,353, roughly one-half of the Minnesota State
population. More than one-half (56 percent) of the
Ramsey County population live in the city of St.
Paul, and one-third (34.2 percent) of the Hennepin
County population live in the city of Minneapolis.
136
In the five-county metropolitan area, 84 percent of
the population is White. African-Americans constitute
the largest minority group in Hennepin County,
while Asians are the largest minority group in Ramsey,
Anoka, Dakota, and Washington Counties.
The remainder of the State is less densely populated
and predominantly rural in character. To the north,
Minnesota shares an international border with Canada,
and to the west it borders North Dakota and
South Dakota, two of the country’s most sparsely
populated States. Illicit drugs are sold and distributed
within Minnesota by Mexican drug trafficking organizations,
street gangs, independent entrepreneurs,
and other criminal groups.
Data Sources
1 The author is affiliated with Hazelden Foundation, Butler Center for Research, Center City, Minnesota.
Data for this report were drawn from the following
sources:
• Mortality data on drug-related deaths are
from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner
and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner
(through September 2004). Hennepin County
cases include those in which drug toxicity was
the immediate cause of death and those in which
the recent use of a drug was listed as a significant
condition contributing to the death. Ramsey
County cases include those in which drug toxicity
was the immediate cause of death and those
in which drugs were present at the time of death.
• Hospital emergency department (ED) data were
accessed from the Drug Abuse Warning Network
(DAWN) Live!, a restricted-access online system
administered by the Office of Applied Studies
(OAS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA). The unweighted
data are from participating hospital
emergency departments in the Minneapolis and
St. Paul Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area
from January 1, 2004, through December 13,
2004; the data were updated 12/13/2004. The
DAWN sample includes 26 of the 28 eligible hospitals
in the area, with 26 emergency departments.
The data reported in this paper are incomplete.
Over the approximately 12-month period, between
7 and 13 EDs reported data, with almost
Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group, Vol. II, January 2005