Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Highlights -- 2006
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies, "Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Highlights - 2006: National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services," DASIS Series S-40, Department of Health and Human Services (Publication No. (SMA) 08-4313, Rockville, MD, January 2008).
This report looks at the whole spectrum of drug treatment admissions, not just young people (covered in "The DASIS Report: Adolescent Treatment Admissions: 1992-2002," above). It further confirms that the escalating rate of marijuana treatment admissions -- touted by officials as proof that marijuana is dangerously addictive -- is fueled largely by arrests: 58% of marijuana treatment admissions came from the criminal justice system, while only 15% were people checking themselves into treatment. For alcohol, the percentages were 43% and 28%, respectively; for crack cocaine, 28% and 38%; for heroin, 14% and 59%. And these marijuana "addicts" didn't smoke very much marijuana: More than half had used marijuana three times or fewer in the month prior to admission. They also had fewer prior treatment episodes than for any other drug, licit or illicit, and were more likely to be employed than those admitted for any other drug besides alcohol. The real scandal here is that thousands of needed treatment slots are being wasted on casual marijuana users whose only "drug problem" was that they got caught.
Full text available for free at: http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/TEDS2k6highlights/toc.cfm
