https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/374/whatepidemic.shtml

About 1.2 million people reported using methamphetamine or prescription stimulants for non-medical reasons in 2003, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMSA) annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the agency reported on February 4th. In a special report on stimulant use, SAMSHA found that over 20 million Americans have used either methamphetamine, prescription amphetamine diet pills, or attention deficit disorder amphetamines such as Dexedrine and Ritalin for non-medical purposes during their lifetimes.

While the SAMSHA report did not compare 2003 usage with previous years, earlier annual reports from the agency show that the number of speed users that year was virtually unchanged from 2002. A close reading of the SAMSHA numbers over the past few years appears to indicate that the increase in stimulant use plateaued early in the millennium after escalating through the late 1990s.

According to the survey, formerly known as the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, some 12 million people reported using methamphetamine at least once in their lifetimes, while an additional 8.7 million reported lifetime use of prescription stimulants for non-medical reasons. SAMSHA placed the number of people dependent on abusing stimulants in 2003 at around 378,000.

The SAMSHA data suggests that some of the rhetoric surrounding the "epidemic" of methamphetamine use is overblown. An epidemic where the numbers affected do not increase from year to year is not much of an epidemic. Nor does the much-vaunted addictiveness of methamphetamine seem to stand up to the numbers. With 12 million lifetime users and 1.2 million users in the last year, only about 25% of last year users meet the SAMSHA's criteria for dependency or abuse and only 2.5% of lifetime users meet that criteria.

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