NCJ Number
204900
Date Published
March 2004
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This report presents data on drug-related hospital emergency department (ED) visits compiled by the Denver Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) in 2002.
Abstract
DAWN is a national surveillance system that monitors drug-related morbidity and mortality by collecting data from a scientific sample of hospital emergency departments and a set of medical examiners and coroners from across the United States, with concentrations in selected metropolitan areas. This report presents DAWN data submitted for 2002 by nine hospitals in the Denver metropolitan area (Colorado). Of the more than one-half million visits to Denver-area emergency departments (ED's) in 2002, approximately 1 percent (5,266) were related to drug abuse. During 2002, the most common drugs involved in these ED visits were cocaine, alcohol in combination with other drugs, heroin, marijuana, and narcotic analgesics (pain relievers). Between 1995 and 2002, the rate of heroin-related ED visits increased 43 percent, from 30 to 43 visits per 100,000 population, including a 10-percent increase since 2001. Over this same period, cocaine-related ED visits in Denver increased 9 percent, from 75 to 82 visits per 100,000 population; over two-thirds of the cocaine-related ED visits also involved other drugs. Over this period, marijuana-related ED visits remained relatively stable; marijuana was usually reported in combination with other drugs (76 percent of ED visits). From 1995 to 2002, pain relievers implicated in drug-related ED visits increased 50 percent in Denver, from 22 to 34 mentions per 100,000 population. In 2002, hydrocodone and oxycodone were the most frequently named pain relievers in drug-related ED visits in Denver. Among the 21 DAWN areas, Denver ranked in the lower half in ED visits that involved cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. 9 figures