Testimony by the Honorable John P. Walters
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
June 21, 2006
The Spread of Meth & Latest Trend Data
In the past decade and a half, methamphetamine use has spread eastward across the United States. Between 1992 and 2003, the treatment admission rate for methamphetamine and amphetamine increased from 10 to 57 admissions per 100,000 population aged 12 or older (an increase of over 470 percent). Additionally, between 2001 and 2004, the positive drug-testing rates among the general United States workforce for methamphetamine/amphetamine increased from 0.29 percent to 0.52 percent of all tests (an increase of 79 percent). However, this trend reversed in 2005 when the incidence of methamphetamine/amphetamine positive drug-testing rates declined 8% to 0.48 percent. The news is even more encouraging when we look only at methamphetamine, which we can do for the first time thanks to a new analysis of the testing results by Quest Diagnostics. The incidence of methamphetamine positives dropped from 0.33% in 2004 to 0.26% in 2005 and down further, to 0.18%, for the first five months of 2006, a 45 percent reduction over two years and significant downward trend.
There is additional good news when we look closely at the data for youth drug use. Methamphetamine use rates have dropped by almost one-third among 8th, 10th and 12th graders combined since 2001. The Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey found a 36.7% decline in lifetime youth meth use since 2001. There is much additional work to do to fight the threat of methamphetamine, both at home and abroad, but the latest information we have received is good news for Americans.
