This report uses data from BJS’s Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP) and other published sources to describe persons arrested and convicted for a federal drug offense involving methamphetamine, cocaine, methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), and other amphetamines. It focuses on psychostimulants, including their classification under the Controlled Substances Act (P.L. 91–513), persons arrested for a federal offense involving psychostimulants, deaths due to overdose, and persons sentenced for a federal offense involving these substances.
The FJSP receives administrative data files from six federal criminal justice agencies: the U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, U.S. Sentencing Commission, and Federal Bureau of Prisons. Data represent the federal criminal case-processing stages from arrest to imprisonment and release. FJSP data are available in the Federal Criminal Case Processing Statistics Data Tool, which provides statistics by stage of the federal criminal case process, including law enforcement, prosecution and courts, and incarceration
Highlights:
- From FY 2021 to FY 2022, the number of arrests the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made for psychostimulants decreased by 9%, from 15,846 to 14,392.
- More than half (55%) of the arrests the DEA made in FY 2022 were for psychostimulants.
- Of the 26,233 total arrests by the DEA in FY 2022, 8,035 (31%) were for methamphetamine, 5,118 (20%) were for powder cocaine, 1,009 (4%) were for crack cocaine, and 230 (<1%) were for other psychostimulants.
- DEA arrests for methamphetamine increased from 6,518 in FY 2002 to 9,335 in FY 2021, then decreased to 8,035 in FY 2022.