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Incidence
The incidence of drug and alcohol use is defined as the number of individuals who tried drugs or alcohol for the first time within a given time period. The incidence of drug and alcohol abuse provides a useful measure of emerging patterns of substance abuse. These estimates are for 2005 NSDUH unless otherwise indicated. In 2005, an estimated 2.9 million persons aged 12 or older used an illicit drug for the first time within the past 12 months; this averages to nearly 8,000 initiates per day. Most initiates (56.1 percent) were younger than age 18 when they first used, and the majority of new users (56.2 percent) were female. The average age at initiation among persons aged 12 to 49 was 18.7 years.
Table 2: Incidence of Substance Abuse,
2005 National Survey of Drug Use and Health |
Substance
|
New Users During 2005
|
| Alcohol |
4.3 million |
| Prescription Drug Abuse |
2.5 million |
| Cigarettes |
2.3 million |
| Marijuana |
2.1 million |
| Hallucinogens |
953,000 |
| Inhalants |
877,000 |
| Cocaine |
872,000 |
| Methamphetamine |
192,000 |
| Heroin |
108,000 |
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