Drug Abuse Treatment Rates on the Rise: U.S. Report

Drug Abuse Treatment Rates on the Rise: U.S. Report
A 15% drop for alcohol abuse while cases of marijuana, prescription painkiller abuse rise

From a December 29, 2010 Health Day news item by Randy Dotinga

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) — Admissions for alcohol abuse treatment have remained the same in parts of the Midwest and South while dropping elsewhere in the United States, while treatment rates for illegal drugs are increasing across the country, especially for marijuana abuse, according to a new report.

The report, issued by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), includes these findings:

• The overall rate of substance abuse admissions in the United States remained stable from 1998 to 2008, at about 770 admissions per 100,000 people.
• Admissions for alcohol use dropped by about 15 percent nationally, but stayed stable in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.
• Admission rates for marijuana use rose by 30 percent nationwide, and were highest in the eight states listed above and in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
• An earlier SAMHSA report revealed that admission rates for abuse of opiates other than heroin — including some prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin — rose by 345 percent from 1998-2008. The new report says admission rates for painkiller abuse rose in every part of the country and were highest in the New England states (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) and in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.
• The admission rate for treatment of methamphetamine abuse was 53 percent higher in 2008 than in 1998, although it’s down from its peak in 2005.
• Admissions for cocaine abuse fell by 23 percent nationally.

“This study provides insight into the regional nature of substance abuse by highlighting the shifting trends in the reasons for admission to substance abuse treatment,” SAMHSA administrator Pamela S. Hyde said in an agency news release.

SOURCE: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, news release, Dec. 23, 2010

The full report is available at: http://wwwdasis.samhsa.gov/teds08/teds2k8sweb.pdf. It provides detailed charts and tables showing the admission rates for a wide variety of substances for each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico for each year over the course of this 11 year period. It also provides data by Census divisions — groups of states delineated by the Census Bureau. These materials allow easy analyses of changing admission trends for any state or region of the country.

The SAMHSA Web site includes numerous links with information about its products and services, as

• Treatment locators for substance abuse and mental health issues
• Prevention programs, services, and information
• Information and services for military families
• Health care reform initiatives
• Housing programs and assistance for the recovering homeless
• Statistics relating to mental health and drug abuse
• A trauma and justice page focusing on increasing support for recovery programs in place of criminal justice programs
• At NIDA for Teens, learn how drugs affect the body and hear from teens who’ve struggled with addiction. This interactive web site has quizzes, videos, games, and a blog that shows the science behind drug abuse.

Related Articles

• SAMHSA Outlines New Strategic Initiatives Paper For Advancing The Nation’s Behavioral Health

March 30, 2011

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) published its strategic initiatives paper – an overview of SAMHSA’s goals, priorities and action steps for accomplishing its mission of reducing the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities. Carefully developed from months of public discussion and input from a wide variety of SAMHSA’s stakeholders, the strategic initiatives paper lays out how SAMHSA will focus its resources in meeting the new opportunities and challenges it faces in the near future…

• Alcohol And Marijuana Were The Most Commonly Abused Substances By Those Referred To Treatment From Probation Or Parole (addictionts.com)
• ER Visits from Ecstasy Jump 75% from ’04 to ’08 (scienceblog.com)
• The Adolescent Brain and Substance Abuse | Drug Addiction Treatment (shammond.typepad.com)
• Medical Marijuana Might Slow Thinking Among MS Patients
• White House launches battle on prescription drug abuse (cnn.com)
• High rates of substance abuse exist among veterans with mental illness (eurekalert.org)
• Teen drug abuse: 14 mistakes parents make (cbsnews.com)
• SAMHSA Press Release on Block Grant Changes (asapnys.wordpress.com)
• Adults Represent A Majority Of Inhalant Treatment Admissions (addictionts.com)
• Marijuana Use May Hurt Intellectual Skills In MS Patients
• ADHS Establishes Rules For Medical Marijuana Program
• How Support Groups Can Aid in Addiction Treatment (everydayhealth.com)
• ‘New Ecstasy’ Poses Major Health Risks, Reveals Research, UK (Medical News Today, 3 April 2011)
• Nearly All American Adults With Untreated Alcohol Use Disorders Don’t Think They Need Treatment (addictionts.com)

Delaying Sex Might Strengthen Marriage

Delaying Sex Might Strengthen Marriage
Study finds waiting on intimacy linked to better communication, stability

From the December 29, 2010 Health Day news release

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) — Having sex early in a relationship may lead to less satisfying marriages because couples can fail to develop important skills to communicate well and resolve conflicts, new research suggests.

The study, done at Brigham Young University in Utah, found that married couples who had delayed sex while they were dating were more likely to communicate, enjoy sex and see their marriage as stable than those who had sex early on. They also were generally more satisfied with their marriage….

…

“The take-home message is that sex is a powerful experience,” said Busby. “It really bonds us to one another and so it may be important before we go down that road to take the time to see if you can talk to this other person — see if you have similar personalities and similar directions in life — to see whether or not this is a relationship that can last.”

About 85 percent of Americans report having had premarital sex, according to research cited in the study. Also according to the research, there is a widespread belief that it is important for dating couples to see if they have “sexual chemistry,” because it is key to a good marriage….

…

he longer sex was delayed, the more participants in the study reported better quality of sex, communication, relationship satisfaction and perceived relationship stability. Waiting until marriage to have sex had the strongest correlations with positive outcomes.

The study was controlled to eliminate the influence of factors that could impact the timing of sexual intimacy, such as religion, education, relationship length and the number of previous sexual partners.

The study authors cited “relationship inertia,” a theory from earlier research, as a reason poorly matched couples stay together. As time goes on, partners feel “constrained” by the complexities of the situation when they may have more wisely parted company, the research noted.

“You get on this escalator and begin sliding into a relationship, rather than deciding in a thoughtful way to become more involved,” said Busby. “People say, ‘I’ve invested four or five years in this relationship’ or ‘We bought a house together,'” he added, noting that “the relationship becomes too complicated to leave.”

Busby cautioned against concluding that premarital sex necessarily leads to a bad marriage, however.

“Just because someone has sex early in a relationship doesn’t mean the marriage is doomed,” he said. “We’re not saying that.”

Busby also said the study group was more white and educated than a random sample of Americans would be, so more research is needed to draw stronger conclusions.

But the study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, suggests that an early focus on sex may lead to “more brittle marriages.”

“You can have great sex with someone you have an incompatible personality with,” Busby pointed out. “Sex is important, but it is not the only important thing in marriage.”

The study drew praise from another expert on interpersonal relationships.

“The impulse to assess sexual chemistry early in a romantic relationship, if not before, is a popular one,” said Mark Regnerus, author of the bookPremarital Sex in America, due out in 2011. “It just doesn’t work as well as advertised.”

A sexual relationship between two people “is best learned, rather than simply graded,” said Regnerus, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin.

“A good marriage — including the sex — is something that’s built. It doesn’t come prefabricated,” he said.

And spouses with lots of sexual memories of other partners may find the bar for satisfaction high, said Regnerus. In contrast, people with fewer sexual memories may not expect as much.

“They are as good at sex as they believe themselves to be,” he said.