Monitoring the Marijuana Upsurge With DUF/ADAM Arrestees, Final Report

• NCJ Number: 188867
• Author(s): Andrew Golub; Bruce D. Johnson
• Date Published: June 2001
• Length: 104 pages
• Grant Number(s): 99-IJ-CX-0020
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)

Annotation

This report examines the dynamics of trends in marijuana use detected at 23 locations across the Nation served by the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program (ADAM) from 1987 through 1998; the analysis provides insight into prevailing trends among youths who tend to get in trouble with both drugs and the law, and it also examines trends prevailing in the general population nationwide by using data from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and the Monitoring the Future programs.

Abstract

Marijuana use nationwide had continually dropped from a peak around 1979 until the early 1990's. Starting in 1991, most of 23 ADAM locations experienced a rapid increase in use among youthful (age 18-20) arrestees from an average low of 25 percent in 1991 up to 57 percent in 1996. Two national surveys also recorded rapid but more modest increases in youthful marijuana use within the mainstream population starting a year later. From 1996 to 1999, most ADAM locations as well as the national surveys recorded stable but relatively high levels of youthful marijuana use, suggesting that by 1999 the marijuana epidemic had stabilized nationwide. Marijuana itself appears to be the drug-of-choice for a new generation of ADAM arrestees, especially when smoked as a blunt in an inexpensive cigar. Members of this marijuana/blunts generation (arrestees born since 1970) were much less likely to become involved with crack or heroin injection than their predecessors. Extensive tables and figures and 27 selected references