Metropolitan Atlanta Drug Abuse Trends

Atlanta indicators suggest that cocaine continues to dominate the local drug market, which is becoming more diverse. Information on cocaine’s prevalence is mixed. According to treatment admissions and emergency department (ED) mentions, cocaine prevalence is declining, which is also supported by arrestee data and ethnographic research. According to the DEA, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine cases dominate the manpower resources of the Atlanta Field Division. Marijuana is the second most prevalent drug on the Atlanta market and is increasingly used by a wider variety of people—mostly males, whites, adolescents, or young adults. Sixty-seven percent of marijuana treatment admissions report no additional drug of choice. Heroin use remains comparatively low and is reported mostly by older injectors and younger snorters who sometimes inject. Since 1995, heroin purity has increased, while prices have fallen. Methamphetamine continues to grow in popularity. Although low in the first half of 1999, Atlanta’s methamphetamine emergency department mention ED rate per 100,000 population is once again the highest among east coast cities. Georgia ranks 8th nationwide in cumulative number of AIDS cases and has the 12th highest level of cases attributable to injecting drug use. The rate of injection-related cases is 15 times higher among African-Americans than among whites. Women accounted for 1 in 5 Georgians with AIDS in 1998, up from 1 in 10 in 1990. Sexually transmitted disease rates per 100,000 population in the Atlanta metropolitan area are among the highest in the South: more than 300 for chlamydia, more than 200 for gonorrhea, and more than 8 for primary and secondary syphilis. Since 1995, reported cases of hepatitis C cases have been primarily (60 percent) male, all older than 30 years. The racial distribution of African -American and white individuals has been roughly equal for hepatitis C cases, but African-Americans outnumber whites 3 to 1 in reported hepatitis B (acute) cases.