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Drug
Addiction Facts
The facts listed below relate
to drug addiction in many aspects. Everything from crime, drug using population,
drug addiction treatment, to the cost of drug addiction on society is listed
below in this page on drug addiction facts.
Drug addiction facts:
- 90% of property crimes
and muggings are drug related.
- The average individual
with a drug addiction needs $200.00 per day to support his/her drug addiction.
- The average individual
with a drug addiction has to steal an average of $1,000.00 worth of property
and goods to raise the $200.00.
- The average individual
with a drug addiction “self medicates” a physical, emotional, spiritual
hurt with drugs he/she has not been able to deal with in a healthy manner.
- Most prison inmates have
a drug addiction.
- There is a gradual dissemination
of the 'harder drugs' heroin and cocaine into younger and younger populations
as the stigma of drug use breaks down. The alarming decrease in the cost of
hard drugs also means that they now represent better 'value for money' than
alcohol.
- 70% of violent crime
is committed by people who are intoxicated with either alcohol or drugs.
- People who have been
drinking are at greater risk of being the victim of violent crime, and are
also more likely to be involved in accidents, fires and to engage in self-harm.
- In one study conducted
at the National Addiction Center, 650 individuals with a heroin addiction
committed more than 70,000 crimes in a three-month period.
- It is estimated that
in 1997 more than 30 million people in the United States and Europe suffered
from chronic alcohol and drug addiction; approximately 22 million individuals
with an alcohol addiction, 6 million individuals with a cocaine addiction
and almost 2 million individuals with a heroin addiction.
- There were approximately
250,000 emergency room admissions for cocaine overdose in 1997.
- In 1997, an estimated
2 million people sought treatment for their drug and alcohol addictions at
approximately 1200 drug rehabilitation clinics in the United States and Europe.
- Currently, an estimated
20 million Americans are addicted to drugs or alcohol.
- Approximately 80% of
all crime in the U.S. is related to drug or alcohol addiction.
- Approximately 135,000
die each year as a consequence of alcohol and drugs, costing about $46 billion
dollars each year.
- Alcoholism is associated
with 25% of all hospital admissions.
- Every dollar spent on
treatment leads to a $7.46 reduction in crime related expenses and lost productivity.
When health care savings are added in, every $1 invested in treatment for
addiction yields a total return of $12 saved.
- Treatment of all addicts
would save more than $150 billion dollars in social costs over the next 15
years.
- Treatment is 15-17 times
more effective than prison. For every crime that incarceration would eliminate,
treatment would eliminate 15.
- More than eight out of
ten teenagers and their parents said illegal drugs are a major problem for
teenagers nationally.
- An overwhelming majority
of teenagers and their parents agreed that alcohol use is a greater problem
than the use of other drugs.
- Six out of ten teenagers
said at least some students at their schools use drugs. Among high school
students, the number was to eight out of ten.
- Four teenagers out of
ten reported having friends who use drugs; more than a quarter said someone
has tried to sell them illegal drugs.
- More than 55% of the
parents interviewed acknowledged that they had smoked marijuana sometime in
their lives, and one out of five admitted using other illegal drugs.
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Theft and drug addiction
