NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE EPIDEMIOLOGIC ...

EPIDEMIOLOGIC TRENDS IN DRUG ABUSE—New Orleans
Drug Abuse Indicators in New Orleans
Gail Thornton-Collins 1
ABSTRACT
Cocaine, especially crack, remains a major problem
in New Orleans, although indicators suggest some
decline in abuse of this drug. Heroin indicators are
also declining. A growing problem is the abuse of
narcotic analgesics. Admissions for opiates other
than heroin accounted for 11–21 percent of all admissions
in four parishes and between 5 and 9 percent
in the other four. Marijuana continues to be a
major drug of abuse, accounting for a large proportion
of drug arrests in 2003 and for nearly 53 percent
of the items analyzed by NFLIS in FY 2004.
Also, admissions for primary marijuana abuse exceeded
those for all other substances for the first
time in fiscal year 2004. Treatment admissions data
from eight other parishes for FY 2004 show that
alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana accounted for
large proportions of primary admissions.
INTRODUCTION
Area Description
New Orleans is located in southern Louisiana. The
city covers 366 square miles, of which 164 are water.
About one-half of the metropolitan area’s 1.3 million
inhabitants live in Orleans Parish, the largest of Louisiana’s
64 parishes. The State has a total population
of about 4.5 million people.
Serviced by several deep-water ports, New Orleans is
located at the connection of two principal waterways:
the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi
River. Barge lines, ocean carriers, and truck lines
serve the Port of New Orleans. Exhibit 1 shows the
race/ethnicity breakdown for both New Orleans and
the State of Louisiana in 2000 and estimates for
2003. As shown, New Orleans had a much higher
percentage of African-Americans (67.3 vs. 32.5 percent)
and a much lower percentage of Whites (28.1
vs. 63.9 percent) than the State in 2000.
Data Sources
Information for this report was collected from the
sources described below:
1 The author is affiliated with the New Orleans Health Department, New Orleans, Louisiana.
• Emergency department (ED) data for January–June
2004 were accessed through the Drug
Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) Live! restricted
access online query system, which is
administered by the Office of Applied Studies
(OAS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA). Nineteen
of the 21 eligible hospitals in the New Orleans
metropolitan area are in the DAWN sample,
with a total of 21 EDs in the sample. (Some
hospitals have more than one ED.) The data reported
in this paper were not complete. During
the 6-month period, between 8 and 11 of the 19
EDs in the DAWN sample reported data each
month. The data in this paper were updated by
OAS on December 13, 2004; they are unweighted
and are not estimates for the new Orleans
area. Since all DAWN cases are reviewed
for quality control, and may be corrected or deleted,
the data reported here are subject to
change. The information derived from DAWN
Live! represent drug reports in drug-related visits;
reports exceed the number of ED visits because
a patient may report use of multiple drugs
(up to six drugs and alcohol may be represented
in DAWN). This paper presents data on “Illicit
Drugs of Abuse” (excluding “Alcohol Only” for
patients under 21) and nonmedical use of two
prescription-type drugs. These data cannot be
compared with DAWN data from 2002 and before,
nor can these preliminary data be used for
comparison with future data. Only weighted ED
data released by SAMHSA can be used for
trend analysis. A full description of the DAWN
system can be found at the DAWN Web site
.
• Drug treatment data were provided by the Louisiana
State Office for Addictive Disorders and
by not-for-profit treatment facilities for Orleans
Parish for fiscal year (FY) 1995 through FY
2004, when 2,306 persons were treated in New
Orleans Parish. (Fiscal years run July through
June.) Data for FY 2004 in eight of the largest
parishes in the State are also reported.
• Drug arrest data were provided by the New
Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for 2002–
Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group, Vol. II, January 2005 155