Skip navigation
HHS.gov Improving the health and well-beign of America
National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. September 2008 Join the Voices for Recovery. Real People. Real Recovery
Real People. Real Recovery

Main Menu  Table of Content

Recovery Month 2006 Kick-Off Event

The Recovery Month 2006 celebration began with a major press event on September 7, 2006, at the National Press Building Holeman Lounge, on 14th and F Streets, Washington D.C. The press event highlighted the release of SAMHSA's 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings, which surveyed 68,308 Americans to determine the latest statistics on substance use. Speakers at the press conference included:

  • John Walters, Director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Assistant Surgeon General Eric Broderick, D.D.S, M.P.H., Acting Deputy Administrator of SAMHSA
  • H. Westley Clark, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., Director, SAMHSA Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
  • Tonya Wheeler, person in recovery from methamphetamine abuse
  • Ashley Hadeed, person in recovery from prescription drug abuse

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health provides a comprehensive and accurate snapshot of substance use trends for the past year. The annual survey, formerly called the "Household Survey," is the largest of its kind, and provides annual estimates of the prevalence of illicit drug, pharmaceutical, alcohol, and tobacco use in the United States, while monitoring trends over time. Some of the more encouraging highlights of the 2005 survey discussed at the press conference included:

  • There was a 9.9 percent decline in illicit drug use among American youth between the ages of 12 and 17 in 2005.
  • Marijuana use declined to 6.8 percent among young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 in 2005. However, marijuana continues to be the most commonly used illicit drug.
  • Drinking among teens has also declined in 2005, with 16.5 percent of youth ages 12-17 reporting current alcohol use and 9.9 percent reporting binge drinking compared to 17.6 and 11.1 percent respectively in 2004.

Despite this progress, the press conference emphasized that there is more work to be done. The following statistics show that drug and alcohol use is still a very serious public health problem in the United States.

  • For young adults, ages 18-25, the picture is mixed. While there were no significant changes in overall past month use of any illicit drugs in this age group between 2002-2005, cocaine use increased from 2.0 in 2002 to 2.6 percent in 2005.
  • Past-month nonmedical use of prescription drugs among young adults increased from 5.4 percent in 2002 to 6.3 percent in 2005, due largely to an increase in the nonmedical use of narcotic pain relievers.
  • Although the number of past month users has remained steady since 2002, the number of methamphetamine users who were dependent on or abused some illicit drug did rise significantly during this period, from 164,000 in 2002 to 257,000 in 2005