This report from the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, is the National Drug Threat Assessment Summary for 2013.
This report provides an assessment of the threat posed to the United States by the trafficking and abuse of illicit drugs and attendant issues the confront communities, as well as a strategic analysis of the domestic drug situation during 2012. Quantitative data for this report were obtained from a variety of sources - seizures, investigations, arrests, drug purity or potency, and drug prices, law enforcement surveys, and laboratory analyses - while qualitative information was obtained from individual agencies. Highlights of the findings include the following: abuse of controlled prescription drugs (CPDs) continues to be the Nation's fastest growing drug problem; the availability of heroin continued to increase in 2012, with some areas seeing a recent increase in heroin overdose deaths; the trend of lower cocaine availability that began in 2007 continued into 2012; methamphetamine availability and marijuana availability continued to increase most likely due to sustained production in Mexico; and the abuse of synthetic designer drugs has emerged as a serious problem in the United States. Detailed information is provided for each of the main drug types: CPDs, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, synthetic designer drugs, and MDMA (3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine).