Drug abuse related emergency room episodes in the United States

Drug-related hospital emergency room cases provide one measure of the morbidity associated with drug abuse. Over time, they indicate if problems associated with particular drugs are increasing or decreasing. These trends may be influenced by a number of factors including increased prevalence of use, increased dosages, increased potency, increased frequency of use, the aging of drug addicts, the use of more dangerous routes of administration, and the combined use of two or more drugs. The primary source of this information in the United States is the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN). This paper will present statistics on the drug-related emergencies reported to the DAWN system for 1989 and 1990. In addition to numbers of drug-related emergencies, this paper includes the population based rates for drug-related emergencies in 1990.