CEWG January 09 Full Report - National Institute on Drug Abuse

Section II. Highlights and Summary of Key Findings and Emerging Drug Issues From the <strong>January</strong> <strong>CEWG</strong> Meeting
Section II. Highlights and Summary of
Key Findings and Emerging Drug Issues
From the <strong>January</strong> 20<strong>09</strong> <strong>CEWG</strong> Meeting
The cornerstone of the <strong>CEWG</strong> meeting is
the <strong>CEWG</strong> area report. Area representatives provide
20-minute presentations summarizing the
most recent data pertaining to illicit and abused
drugs and noting changes since the prior meeting.
These data are viewed as indicators of the
drug problem in an area. Indicators reflect different
aspects of the drug abuse situation in an area,
such as prevalence of abuse of drugs (e.g., survey
findings), consequences of drug abuse (e.g.,
drug-related ED reports, substance abuse treatment
admissions, and drug-related deaths), and
availability of abused substances or law enforcement
engagement (e.g., drug seizures). Qualitative
information from ethnographic studies or
local key informants is also used to describe drug
use patterns and trends, and may be particularly
informative in the early identification of new
issues or substances being misused or abused.
In presenting area reports, <strong>CEWG</strong> representatives
are invited to use their professional
judgment and knowledge of the local context to
provide an overall characterization of the indicators
for their areas, as possible, given available
data; that is, to assess whether indicators appear to
be stable, increasing, decreasing, or are mixed so
that no consistent pattern is discernable. <strong>CEWG</strong>
representatives may also provide an overall characterization
of the level of the indicators as high,
moderate, or low, or identify when particular
drugs are considered to be the dominant drugs of
abuse in an area. Some indicators are sensitive to
recent changes in local policy or law enforcement
focus; therefore representatives use their knowledge
of the local context in describing and interpreting
data available for their area.
Update Briefs reflecting the <strong>CEWG</strong> area presentations
are included in section III of this report.
Area Update Briefs document and summarize
drug abuse trends and issues in specific <strong>CEWG</strong>
areas, with an emphasis on information newly
available since the June 2008 meeting area reports.
The availability of data varies by area. Readers are
directed to the Data Sources section of the Update
Briefs in section III to determine which data
sources were reviewed for particular areas.
Subsequent to the <strong>CEWG</strong> meeting, data
available across a majority of <strong>CEWG</strong> areas, such
as substance abuse treatment admissions and
information from NFLIS, are reviewed. These
data are presented in section IV of this report
and in appendix tables 2.1–2.22. Highlights from
these cross-area tabulations are also included in
section II.
For the <strong>January</strong> 20<strong>09</strong> <strong>CEWG</strong> meeting, <strong>CEWG</strong>
representatives were invited to provide an overview
and update on drug abuse trends in their
areas, with particular attention to issues pertaining
to the abuse of heroin and prescription opiates.
Representatives from United States border
States, Mexico, and Canada were also invited to
briefly address drug abuse issues along the United
States northern and southern borders. Following
the <strong>January</strong> 20<strong>09</strong> area presentations, <strong>CEWG</strong>
representatives convened in small work groups
organized by region to discuss local issues in the
regional context and to facilitate the identification
of issues and patterns within and across regions.
Key findings and issues identified are highlighted
in section II, with more detail provided in the
Update Briefs in section III.
Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group, <strong>January</strong> 20<strong>09</strong> 7