Drug Episodes Sending More To The Er

A half-million Americans wound up in hospital emergency rooms with drug-related problems last year, including a record number with cocaine-related episodes.

Cocaine figured in 28 percent or 142,000 of those emergency visits, up 15 percent from 1993, according to estimates released Tuesday by a federal agency that tracks the impact of drug use.

The drug-related episodes account for 0.6 percent of all 86 million visits to hospital emergency departments in 1994.

Thirteen percent of those treated for drug-connected problems had used heroin, sometimes in combination with cocaine, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of heroin-related episodes rose slightly from 1993 to 64,000.

Episodes involving speed, crank and other methamphetamine drugs rose sharply, with 17,400 cases.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala said in a statement, “At a time when it appears there is a resurgence in cocaine-related emergency department episodes, we cannot afford to cut prevention and treatment funding.”

But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said, “These latest increases underscore the folly of the Clinton administration’s policy of attempting to rehabilitate hard-core addicts while neglecting law enforcement, interdiction and the bully pulpit.”

The most commonly reported motive for the drug use was an attempt at suicide. That was the reason in an estimated 193,000 of the 508,000 episodes, or 38 percent.

Dependence on drugs was a motive in 165,000 episodes, or 32 percent, and “recreational use” in 43,000 episodes, or 8 percent.