REGION: Drug use down among arrested adults, report shows

Meth use drops sharply

By SARAH GORDON - Staff Writer | Thursday, August 21, 2008 5:51 PM PDT ∞

Fewer adults arrested in the county tested positive for illegal drugs in 2007 compared with the year before, according to a study released this week by the San Diego Association of Governments, a regional planning agency.

The study also found that drug use among men was at an eight-year low and meth use dropped sharply over the same period.

The SANDAG study involved 764 randomly selected people booked into the Vista, Central and Las Colinas jails. The inmates were interviewed and tested for marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and PCP.

The study found that some 57 percent of men surveyed at the time of their arrest tested positive for an illegal drug, compared with 66 percent in 2006, while 69 percent of women tested positive, compared with 75 percent the year before.

For both groups, the change represented the greatest single-year drop since SANDAG began conducting the surveys in 2000. For men, the fraction of drug users, which peaked at 69 percent in 2004, was the lowest recorded.

Meth use, which peaked in 2005, dropped for the second year in a row. Overall, 28 percent of males tested positive for meth, compared with 36 percent in 2006, the largest one-year decrease since 2000.

Among women, 44 percent tested positive for meth compared with 47 percent the year before.

The drop in meth use may be connected to its apparent decrease in availability. In 2005, more than half of the inmates surveyed said meth was "very easy to obtain."

By 2007, only 40 percent said the drug was easy to get.

Drug Enforcement Administration spokeswoman Eileen Zeidler said that a 2005 federal law tightly controlling the sale of cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine, meth's building block, had destroyed the drug's domestic production and supply.

"We used to find big labs all the time," Zeidler said. "Now if we see labs here, they're small. People are only making enough meth for their personal use."

She said most of the region's meth comes from Mexico, but that similar limits on pseudoephedrine sales recently enacted there will soon limit production.

"Mexico is trying to put the same constraints on it, so it will be interesting to see if the supplies dry up anymore," she said.

Cynthia Burke, director of the association's Criminal Justice Research Division, suggested that increased awareness of meth's negative effects on physical and mental health also may have played a role in its decreased use.

"It seems that maybe some of the perception that this is a cool drug has started to change," Burke said. "The physical problems, the bizarre behavior, the drug is not as glorified as it used to be."

Women have tested positive for drugs more often than men every year since 2000, and are most likely to use meth, cocaine and heroin, while men tend to report recent alcohol use and test positive for marijuana, the report says. This year's report shows the greatest gap yet in drug use between men and women.

"(Women) are always consistently higher; it speaks to the tragic lives that many of the women in our justice system face," Burke said, noting that other studies indicate that about 80 percent of female criminals have experienced domestic violence.

This year's report noted that women who were arrested were more likely than men to have been raised in homes where at least one parent used drugs.

For the first time, researchers asked participants about gang affiliation, homelessness and emergency room visits.

A third of those arrested said they had been in or affiliated with a gang at some point, with about 10 percent reporting current ties. Young people were more likely to report the association, and drug use was higher among men and women of all ages who reported gang affiliations.

Nearly half the people questioned said they had been homeless at some point, and 24 percent reported using the emergency room for health problems related to drug or alcohol use. About 1 in 5 questioned reported a previous diagnosis for a mental or psychiatric disorder.

More than 4 in 5 surveyed said that this was not their first arrest, and more than 1 in 3 reported they had first been arrested as a juvenile.

Such evidence shows that programs addressing the underlying causes of crime are essential, Burke said. And society benefits when people in the criminal system find help for their problems, she added.

"While there's definitely individuals who commit such heinous crimes that they deserve to be locked away, most of these people do come out again," Burke continued. "It's going to be more expensive in the long run if we don't provide opportunities for them to make positive changes when they are ready."

Contact staff writer Sarah Gordon at (760) 740-3517 or sgordon@nctimes.com.

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