D.C. residents rank as top cocaine, alcohol abusers
By: MARIA SCHMITT
Special to The Examiner
June 9, 2009
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The District ranks highest in the country for cocaine use and alcohol dependence, and has the third-highest percentage of marijuana usage, according to a new study.
The study by the federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is the result of national drug survey results from 2006 and 2007 of residents of the District and 50 states, compiled through interviews and calculated estimations.
“Crack and powder cocaine have been problems in D.C. for a long time,” said Peter Delany, director of the Office of Applied Studies for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “In the last few years it’s been in the top 10. This year, it’s the highest.”
The Washington area has had a troubling association with drugs and alcohol, from the overdose death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias to the undercover bust of then-Mayor Marion Barry to last year’s DUI arrest of Rep. Vito Fossella of New York.
During the 1980s and ’90s, the crack epidemic swept through the streets of the nation’s capital, decimating entire neighborhoods. Drug wars pushed the city’s body count to 400 killings a year, more than twice the number it is today.
Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Garrison Courtney said he was not surprised by the high rate of cocaine use in the District.
According to the study, one in 20 D.C. residents over age 12 said they had used cocaine in the previous 12 months.
“Drug use tends to go where people have money,” he said. “It’s endemic of the area.”
Meanwhile, Virginia ranked 11th nationally in cocaine use, with a rate of just under 3 percent of people having used the drug during the year, according to the study, and Maryland was 26th with a rate of just over 2 percent of the population.
Having several major airports and a large number of poor people could also boost D.C.’s cocaine numbers, Courtney said. The drug trade also makes its way on the ground from Mexico and the Southwestern United States up through Atlanta and the East Coast.
D.C. Department of Health spokeswoman Dena Iverson told The Examiner there were “several factors that contribute to high rates of drug use in the District, such as the highly addictive nature of drugs like crack cocaine. We are committed to providing services to residents coping with addiction and substance use disorder.”
The District also ranks high in marijuana use. Nearly 16 percent of the people surveyed admitted to using marijuana in the previous 12 months. That percentage ranked the District third in the country, trailing Rhode Island and Vermont by a fraction of a percentage point.
Virginia was 23rd, with a use rate of just over 10 percent, and Maryland was 31st, with a use rate of just under 10 percent, according to the study.
The survey found one in 10 District respondents over age 12 admitted to abusing alcohol or being dependent on alcohol in the previous 12 months. Maryland ranked 28th, with an abuse or dependence rate of just under eight per 100, and Virginia was 35th with a rate of abuse of just over 7 percent.
Scott McCabe contributed to this story.
