Drug use at arrest

In 1999 the Arrestees Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program collected data from more than 30,000 adult male arrestees in 34 sites and from more than 10,000 adult female arrestees in 32 sites. Data were collected from more than 2,500 juvenile male detainees in 9 sites, and more than 400 juvenile females detainees in 6 sites.

In most sites, about two-thirds of the adult arrestees and more than half of the juvenile arrestees tested positive for at least one drug.

For adult males --

• Marijuana was the drug most frequently detected in 24 of the 34 reporting sites.
  
• Cocaine was the drug most likely to be detected in the remaining 10 sites.

For adult females --

• Cocaine was the drug most frequently detected in 25 of 32 sites.
  
• Marijuana was the most frequently detected in 4 of the remaining sites.
  
• Methamphetamine was the most frequently detected in the 3 remaining sites.

For juveniles --

• Drug test positive rates for juveniles were essentially stable in 1999 compared to 1997 across all 9 sites.
  
• Juvenile arrestees who currently attended school were less likely to test positive for at least one drug than those juveniles who were not in school. This also held true when drug-positive results were compared for each drug individually.
  
• Marijuana was the most commonly used drug for both juvenile males and females, with cocaine use a distant second. On average more than half of the juvenile males tested positive for marijuana.

Marijuana

Within any given site, men were generally more likely than women to test positive for marijuana in 1999. In addition, young adults (ages 15 to 20), whether male or female, were the most likely to be involved with marijuana.

For adult arrestees testing positive for marijuana use ranged from --

• 51% in Omaha to 28% in Las Vegas for males.
  
• 39% in Oklahoma City to 9% in Laredo for females.

A comparison between 1998 and 1999 results in the 23 sites for which trend data are available indicates that marijuana-positive percentages varied across sites.

Cocaine

Overall, cocaine is still found in more than a third of the drug-test results of adult arrestees in 20 sites in 1999.

For adult arrestees testing positive for cocaine use use ranged from --

• 51% in Atlanta to 14% in San Jose for males.
  
• 65% in New York City to 19% in San Antonio for females.

A comparison between 1998 and 1999 results for which trend data are available indicates that cocaine-positive percentages were unchanged in a majority of the sites.

Methamphetamine

Overall, in any given site, women were generally more likely than men to test positive for methamphetamine in 1999. For adult arrestees testing positive for methamphetamine use use ranged from --

• 28% in Sacramento to 20% in Portland and Spokane for males.
  
• 36% in San Diego to 22% in Des Moines for females.

A comparison between 1998 and 1999 results for which trend data are available indicates that methamphetamine-positive percentages were nearly the same in most of the sites.

 Source: 1999 Annual Report on Drug Use Among Adult and Juvenile Arrestees, Arrestees Drug Abuse Monitoring Program (ADAM), under the National Institute of Justice, 1999, NCJ 181426, June 2000.