Pretreatment Drug Use by Patients Entering Drug Treatment Programs during 1971–1973

Abstract

Patterns of pretreatment drug abuse are described for 28,419 drug users who entered community-based treatment centers that participated in the national Drug Abuse Reporting Program during 1971–1973. Daily heroin use was reported by 60 per cent of the patients; one-third used daily heroin but no nonopioids, one-third used daily heroin and either cocaine, marihuana, or both, and the remainder used other nonopioids (particularly barbiturates) with daily heroin. Polydrug use (three or more nonopioids) was common among the patients who used no heroin or used it infrequently. As expected, polydrug use was most frequent among younger individuals, while daily heroin use (especially without other drugs) was increasingly prevalent among older age groups. Although alcohol use in at least moderate amounts was reported by only a third of the sample, it was most frequent among polydrug users, and was least frequent among daily users of heroin only. Within groups categorized by general patterns of illicit drug use, however, prevalence of alcohol use was higher among males than females, and increased with age.