A Swedish drug abuse warning network

During the period June 1971-December 1976 a total of 592 consecutive admissions to a Drug Addiction Clinic were asked which drugs they had been taking since their first contact with the illegal drug market. Nine drugs belonging to the opiate group, five different amphetamines, five hallucinogens, cocaine and cannabis were mentioned and the patients were asked to specify which year or years they had self-administered any of the drugs mentioned. No attempts were made to quantify the individual drug consumption. The amphetamines and cannabis dominated in the mid sixties, but from then on recorded used of these drugs declined. From 1965 there was a constant increase in the reported use of opiates up to a maximum of 55 per cent of the patients in 1976. The opiates seem to have been introduced on to the market in the order of increasing potency. Morphine base replaced raw opium in the early seventies but was later succeeded by heroin. Hallucinogens, except for a short period around 1969 when 11 per cent of our patients mentioned them, never seemed to reach important levels. A small but growing proportion of our patients have mentioned use of cocaine in the seventies.