STUDY: DRUG USE ESTIMATE MAY BE LOW

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A study of drug use in Cook County, Ill., suggests that
the conventional estimate of 13 million hardcore drug users nationwide is
far too low.

In the study, released Wednesday by Barry McCaffrey, director of the White
House Office of National Drug Control Policy, researchers tracked drug
users through jails, treatment centers and homeless shelters.

The survey estimates there are about 330,000 habitual users of cocaine,
crack cocaine and heroin in Chicago and surrounding Cook County. Previous
estimates placed the number of residents using drugs other than marijuana
at about 117,000.

``This is a somewhat unsettling conclusion,'' McCaffrey said of the
Chicago-area findings, and said it raises questions about whether the
national estimate of 13 million hardcore drug users should be larger. ``I
would lean in the direction of saying yes.''

Hardcore use is defined as the use of heroin, powder cocaine or crack
cocaine on eight or more days during at least one of the preceding eight
months, the drug policy office said.

``Hardcore drug users maintain the illegal drug market,'' McCaffrey said,
'' ... and they provide a spring from which new epidemics of drug use flow.''

A second survey, the 1997 ``Pulse Check'' tracking national drug abuse
trends based on findings from police and drug treatment sources, found:

- --Heroin use has spread to all regions of the country, a situation
McCaffrey attributed to ``high use, low cost and easy availability.'' He
said many dealers who previously specialized in cocaine now sell heroin as
well.

- --The price of crack cocaine is dropping in most areas of the country,
possibly due to a decrease in new users but also because of a possible
increase in supply.

- --Crack cocaine remains the dominant drug in most markets, with users
tending to be older than they were in the early 1990s, suggesting fewer new
users.

The Chicago-area research will be followed up, if Congress approves, by
surveys in other areas of the country, McCaffrey said, emphasizing the need
by policy makers for accurate estimates of drug users.

The research in Illinois was done by Abt Associates, a research firm based
in Cambridge, Mass., which worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and
his administration.