NCJ Number
115160
Date Published
1988
Length
29 pages
Annotation
The purpose of the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program is to provide cities with information for early detection of drug epidemics, planning allocation of law enforcement resources, determining treatment and prevention needs, and measuring the impact of efforts to reduce drug use and crime.
Abstract
Other goals are to provide national-level estimates of illicit drug use among offenders, and to track and forecast national drug use trends. In this program, voluntary urine specimens and anonymous interviews are obtained from a sampling of 200 to 250 new male arrestees and 50 to 100 new female arrestees every three months. DUF was expanded to include juveniles in 1988 and will be expanded to 25 cities in 1989, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C. Results indicate that: (1) the largest percentage of male and female arrestees testing positive for any drug was in New York, (2) while percentages for usage of marijuana and cocaine were high, percentages for PCP, opiates, and amphetamines were low, and (3) the percentage of female arrestees who have injected drugs is consistently higher than the percentage of male arrestees in 11 cities, although male arrestees were primarily charged with nondrug felony offenses.