Introduction

This report is based on the latest round of contacts and interviews with information sources, contacts occurring during the months of August and September of 1995. These contacts were made by Abt Associates staff members under the direction of Dr. Dana Hunt for the Office of National Drug Control Policy as part of the continuing monitoring and information series known as the "Pulse Check." Pulse Check information provides a subjective picture of drug use in this nation and should not be confused with more detailed, time-consuming profiles derived from surveys of probability samples such as the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse or the annual survey of high school students, Monitoring the Future.

The name given this series—"Pulse Check"—captures its purpose: to provide a quick sense of what is happening with regard to drug abuse across the Nation. The Pulse Check uses quarterly conversations with police, ethnographers and epidemiologists working in the drug field, and providers of drug treatment services across the country to develop an up-to-date picture of what is going on in the world of illegal drug use. The police and ethnographic and epidemiologic reporters are generally the same from quarter to quarter. The sample of treatment providers, however, is randomly drawn, stratified by size from a listing of all treatment providers in each region; those called each quarter vary as the sample is refreshed. A further discussion of the sources used in development of the Pulse Check is included as Appendix A.

The following sections describe briefly the sources used and summarize findings for this latest Pulse Check.