A recent report of drug trends in Seattle and King County shows no major changes for the first half of 2007 compared to prior years, though the small numbers preclude detailed trend analyses.
Highlights include:
- Prescription type opiates, heroin and cocaine continue to have substantial impacts on morbidity and mortality.
- Buprenorphine, a prescription-type opiate used for pain and increasingly for opiate substitution drug treatment, was identified for the first time in a poly-drug caused death involving alcohol and several prescription sedative medications. It is important for patients and physicians to be mindful of the potential danger of combining buprenorphine with other central nervous system depressants.
- Methamphetamine indicators appear to be leveling off in recent years with most negative health indicators at levels generally lower than for cocaine, heroin and prescription-type opiates.
- Marijuana use and local growing operations continue to be common.
- MDMA/Ecstasy negative health indicators remain low, but law enforcement data indicate a substantial volume of MDMA moving across the Canadian border through Washington State with final destinations throughout the U.S.
The report by Caleb Banta-Green and others for NIDA's Community Epidemiology Work Group is on the ADAI website: http//depts.washington.edu/adai/pubs/tr/cewg/CEWG_Seattle_Jan2008.pdf
