Health News
2006-03-04
Meth treatment
programs face growing demand
The number of
people seeking treatment for methamphetamine abuse more
than quadrupled from 1993 to 2003, a report released
The number of
people seeking treatment for methamphetamine abuse more
than quadrupled from 1993 to 2003, a report released
Thursday said. States in the Midwest and South that
had few meth abuse patients a decade ago are now
seeing a sharp rise in the rate of admissions to treatment
centers, according to the report by the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration.
The findings
mirror the trend of meth abuse moving gradually from the
West—where the drug first became
popular—across the Midwest and South to the
East Coast.
Crystal meth is a
popular club drug used by gay men, particularly young
gay men in urban areas. In a 2003 study, led by the
Chicago Department of Public Health and the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
approximately 10% of gay men said they had used crystal
meth at least once in the previous year, compared with 0.7%
of the general U.S. population. In addition, of those
gay men who reported meth use, 20% said they used it
at least once per week. A joint study conducted from
2000 to 2001 by the University of California, San
Francisco’s AIDS Health Project; the CDC; and the San
Francisco Department of Public Health found that those
who used meth were three times as likely as nonusers
to contract HIV.
Nationwide, the
admission rate for treatment of methamphetamine or
amphetamine addiction rose from 28,000 in 1993 to nearly
136,000 patients in 2003, the report said.
The report found
18 states with meth treatment rates higher than the
national rate: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon,
Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Northeastern
states had low rates of treatment admissions for meth and
amphetamine abuse in 1993, and those rates remained low in
2003, the report said. (AP, with additional reporting
by Advocate.com)
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