Emergency Rooms Report Decline In Drug-Related Visits

In another sign of progress in the nation’s war on substance abuse, the number of drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms across the country has fallen for the first time in the 1990s, federal health officials announced Tuesday.

After rising steadily through 1994, drug-caused emergency treatment declined 6 percent from 1995 to 1996, according to the federal government’s Drug Abuse Warning Network, a national reporting system. The data came from 21 metropolitan communities.

The statistically significant decrease resulted mostly from a drop in cases that involved legal drugs - prescription drugs as well as over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen, the government said.

But the trends most lauded Tuesday by officials were the leveling off of cases related to heroin and cocaine use, a drop in cases involving methamphetamine (“speed”), and an apparent drop in the rate of increase in episodes involving marijuana and hashish.

The findings are especially significant in light of the dramatic increases that preceded them, officials said.

“The reasons for this apparent turnaround involve everyone in America - parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders and community coalitions,” said National Drug Policy Director Barry McCaffrey. “The media also plays a large role. … Everyone has been a part of effectively spreading the message that drug abuse is devastating to the user and the nation. The slight success we are seeing encourages us to continue our hard work.”