NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE EPIDEMIOLOGIC ...

ground economy, it was estimated that New York City
is home to a $23 billion annual illegal counterfeiting
industry, causing the city to lose more than $1 billion in
tax revenues each year.
Data Sources
This report describes current drug abuse trends in New
York City from 1995 to 2004, using the data sources
summarized below:
• Emergency department (ED) drug mentions data
were derived from the Drug Abuse Warning Network
(DAWN), Office of Applied Studies (OAS),
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrative
(SAMHSA), for 1995 through 2002.
The weighted data are based on a representative
sample of hospitals in New York City and Westchester,
Rockland, and Putnam Counties.
• Drug abuse-related death data are from the
DAWN mortality system. Data from 1995 covered
New York City, Long Island, and Putnam County
and included heroin/morphine and unspecified types
of opiates. Beginning in 1996, DAWN covered only
New York City, and the category for heroin/morphine
no longer included other opiates.
According to Mortality Data From the Drug Abuse
Warning Network, 2001, incomplete data were received
for the New York metropolitan area, so data
for New York were not presented for 2001.
• Treatment admissions data were provided by the
New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance
Abuse Services (OASAS) for 1995 through
the first half of 2004 and included both State-funded
and nonfunded admissions. Demographic data are
for the first half of 2004.
• Arrestee drug testing data were provided by the
Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program,
National Institute of Justice (NIJ), for 2003.
Adult males were sampled representatively, and
data are weighted. Female data are unweighted.
• Drug-related arrest data were provided by the
New York City Police Department (NYPD) for
1994–2002.
• Forensic laboratory testing data for New York
City were provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA)’s National Forensic Laboratory
Information System (NFLIS) for fiscal year (FY)
2004 (from October 1, 2003, through September
2004).
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EPIDEMIOLOGIC TRENDS IN DRUG ABUSE—New York City
• Drug price, purity, and trafficking data were
provided by the DEA’s Domestic Monitor Program
(DMP) for heroin. These data are supplemented by
information from the OASAS Street Studies Unit
(SSU) reports. Data on methamphetamine laboratories
were provided by the New York State Police.
• Cocaine use during pregnancy data were provided
by the New York City Department of Health
for 1995–2003.
• Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)
and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) data
were provided by the New York City Department of
Health for 1984–2003.
DRUG ABUSE PATTERNS AND TRENDS
Cocaine/Crack
In general, many cocaine indicators, which had been
declining, are beginning to show increases, and the
drug still accounts for major problems in New York
City (exhibit 1).
For the New York City metropolitan area, DAWN estimates
for cocaine ED mentions remained essentially
the same in 2001 and 2002 (13,898 and 13,961, respectively).
There was a significant decline, however,
between 1995, when there were 19,715 mentions, and
2002—a decrease of 29 percent. The rate of cocaine ED
mentions per 100,000 population in the New York City
metropolitan area for 2002 was 166, the same as the
previous 2 years, but a decline of 32 percent since
1995. The comparable national rate for 2002 was 78.
While the national rate had been relatively stable, there
was a 33-percent increase in this rate since 1995.
While primary cocaine treatment admissions to Statefunded
and nonfunded programs in New York City
declined from 17,572 in 1998 to 14,059 in 2000, they
increased to 16,114 in 2003. In the first half of 2004,
primary cocaine admissions remained essentially the
same as in the first half of 2003, with 8,208 admissions.
It should be noted that even when the cocaine treatment
admissions were in decline, they did not show the same
type of dramatic long-term decline that was seen in the
other indicators. In the first half of 2004, cocaine admissions
constituted 24 percent of all New York City’s
34,676 drug and alcohol treatment admissions (excluding
alcohol-only).
Exhibit 2 shows demographic characteristics of cocaine
treatment admissions for the first half of 2004 by the
two primary modes of use: smoking crack (representing
61 percent of cocaine admissions) and using cocaine
Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group, Vol. II, January 2005