Drug Use
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA)
(Survey Type: National Survey on Drug Use and Health)
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation.
SAMSHA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities.
Sep. 11, 2020 video presentation of SAMSHA’s 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
2019 NSDUH Section 1: Illicit Drug Use/Misuse Tables – 1.1 to 1.123 (drug usage by type and cohort)
2018 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases
Aug. 20, 2019 video presentation of SAMSHA’s 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
2018 NSDUH Section 1: Illicit Drug Use/Misuse Tables – 1.1 to 1.123 (drug usage by type and cohort)
2017 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases
Sep. 14, 2018 video presentation of SAMSHA’s 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
2017 NSDUH Section 1: Illicit Drug Use/Misuse Tables – 1.1 to 1.16 (drug usage by type and cohort)
2016 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases
Results From The 2016 National Survey On Drug Use And Health: Detailed Tables – see Section 1: Illicit Drug Use Tables – 1.1 to 1.116 (drug usage by type and cohort)
2015 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases
Results From The 2015 National Survey On Drug Use And Health: Detailed Tables – see Section 1: Illicit Drug Use Tables – 1.1 – 1.158 (drug usage by type and cohort)
2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) Releases
Results From The 2014 National Survey On Drug Use And Health: Detailed Tables – see Section 1: Illicit Drug Use Tables – 1.1 to 1.92 (drug usage by type and cohort)
After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, 'What Good Is It Doing For Us?'
June 17, 2021 | NPROfficers Said They Smelled Pot. The Judge Called Them Liars.
Courts in New York have long ruled that if a car smells like pot, the police can search it. But now, a backlash is mounting.
Sep 13, 2019 | Joseph Goldstein | New York TimesVirginia lawmakers pass bill banning pretextual traffic stops and searches based on the smell of marijuana
Oct 3, 2020 | Ned Oliver | Virginia MercuryPolice ‘Pretext’ Traffic Stops Need to End, Some Lawmakers Say
Sep 3, 2020 | Marsha Mercer | PEWTraffic Stops and Discriminatory Policing in the United States
Apr 26, 2018 | Erin Killeen, Georgetown Law / Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & PolicyOregon officers can no longer ask random questions during traffic stops. An attorney hopes more states will follow
Dec 15 2019 | Christina Maxouris | CNN
By asking these questions, Baumgartner says, officers are often able to get what are known as "consent searches."
They're allowed to search a resident's car, not because they have probable cause to do so -- if the driver seems under the influence, or the officer can smell alcohol, for example --- but because the driver has agreed to a search.
"Young minority males are much more likely to have their car searched," he told CNN. But not more likely to have contraband, he says.STATE OF OREGON, Respondent on Review, v. MARIO ARREOLA-BOTELLO, Petitioner on Review.
November 15, 2019 | Justia US Law Opinion Summary
Defendant Mario Arreola-Botello was lawfully stopped for failing to signal a turn and a lane change. During the stop, while defendant was searching for his registration and proof of insurance, the officer asked him about the presence of guns and drugs in the vehicle, and requested consent to search the vehicle. Defendant consented, and during the search, the officer found a controlled substance. Defendant contended that the officer expanded the permissible scope of the traffic stop when he asked about the contents of the vehicle and requested permission to search it because those inquiries were not related to the purpose of the stop. The Oregon Supreme Court concurred with defendant that the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress what the officer found, and reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals.In 2016, in the matter of North Carolina v. Pigford, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that the odor of marijuana emanating from a vehicle established probable cause for police to search the vehicle but did not establish probable cause for the warrantless search of passengers.
In November 2019, in the matter of Oregon v. Arrello-Botello, the Supreme Court of Oregon held that police exceeded the permissible scope of a traffic stop when they stopped a vehicle for failure to signal a traffic turn and then asked the driver about the presence of guns and drugs in the vehicle, requested his “consent” to search the vehicle and recovered drugs.
On October 2nd 2020, the Virginia legislature passed a bill banning pretextual traffic stops and searches based on the smell of marijuana
Legalize it All How to win the war on drugs
The smoking gun in the case of the role of racial animus and discrimination at the heart of “The War on Drugs”
April 2016 | Dan Baum | Harper’s MagazinePresident Nixon Declares Drug Abuse “Public Enemy Number One”
Youtube video of the June 17, 1971 press conference that effectively declared the war on drugsUNJUST AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL
60,000 Jim Crow Marijuana Arrests in Mayor de Blasio’s New York
They NYPD’s Racially-Targeted Enforcement of Marijuana Possession Continues, 2014-2016
Drug Policy Alliance & Marijuana Arrest Research Project, New York City (July 2017)These city-wide racial disparities in enforcement of marijuana possession over several decades are not the product of the personal prejudice, bigotry, character or values of individual police officers. Such dramatic, widespread and longstanding racial disparities in enforcement also are not the consequence of inadequate training or rogue squads or bad apples or incompetent precinct commanders.
The Jim Crow marijuana arrests are a systemwide phenomenon, a form of institutional racism administered day in and day out by people at the highest levels of law enforcement and government. The Jim Crow marijuana possession arrests are intentional – meaning that the leadership of the NYPD has understood for decades that severe racial disparities in arrests for marijuana possession are the regular, predictable result of decisions about where and how they deploy their police, what they ask them to do, and which patterns they purposefully ignore, reward and discipline. The effect of this policing has been called “racism without racists." No individual officers need harbor racial animosity for the criminal justice system to produce jails and courts filled with black and brown faces.
But the absence of hostile intent does not absolve policy-makers and law enforcement officials from responsibility for this pattern of discriminatory arrests. In 2013, Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin determined in two prominent stop and frisk cases that New York City’s top officials had “adopted an attitude of willful blindness toward statistical evidence of racial disparities in stops and stop outcomes." She cited the legal doctrine of “deliberate indifference” to describe police and city officials who “willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy ... is racially discriminatory and therefore violates the United States Constitution."
This is demonstrably true for the city’s marijuana possession arrests. They are the result of “willful indifference” by top city and police officials to the unwarranted and unconstitutional racial discrimination built into these routine police enforcement patterns and policies. And the city’s top police officials have also shown “deliberate indifference” to the life disruption caused by these many arrests and to the damaging lifetime effects of the criminal records automatically generated by the marijuana arrests.In an op-ed column in 2012, former Mayor Ed Koch wrote:
“A great injustice is being perpetrated by members of the New York City Police Department on the people of this city.... I urge all five district attorneys to publicly state that they will not prosecute anyone charged with marijuana possession for personal use other than for a violation.
The hideous part of all of this is that studies show that whites are the greater users of marijuana, not blacks or Hispanics. It is black and Hispanic youths who are being arrested and end up with criminal records, destroying many of their already limited opportunities for getting jobs and achieving a better life. This is unacceptable in a society that believes it is devoted to justice and fairness.”In his January 2013 State of the State address, Governor Andrew Cuomo said:
"These [marijuana possession] arrests stigmatize, they criminalize, they create a permanent record. It's not fair, it's not right, it must end, and it must end now."