EMERGENCY ROOM DRUG CASES FALL 6%

Drug czar touts decline in '96 as sign of success

WASHINGTON -- The number of drug cases moving through emergency rooms
dropped 6 percent last year, with cocaine, heroin and marijuana incidents
remaining steady.

Officials welcomed the news, released yesterday, as a sign that the nation
has reversed its rising use of illegal drugs.

The decrease, though, is largely attributable to fewer cases involving
legal drugs. For instance, there were significant drops in cases involving
pain relievers aspirin and ibuprofen.

Also falling were the number of cases involving methamphetamine, or speed,
and PCP, a powerful psychedelic drug.

The man in charge of the Clinton administration's war on illegal drugs,
retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, hailed the figures as a sign of success in
his campaign.

"(They) give additional credence to other recent surveys indicating that
the upward slope of drug abuse has indeed begun to be arrested . . . The
slight success we are seeing encourages us to continue our hard work," he
said in a statement.

Overall, there were 487,564 drug-related emergency room visits in 1996,
down from 517,764 in 1995, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network
survey, which polls a sampling of U.S. hospitals.

Half the cases were drug overdoses, and another 37 percent were attempted
suicides, the report said.

The most common cases were alcohol used in combination with another drug;
there were nearly 160,000 of these cases last year, down from 168,000 in
1995.

Cocaine and heroin were the next most common cases, at 144,180 and 70,463,
respectively, both essentially unchanged from 1995. Because one visit to he
emergency room often involves more than one drug, the individual statistics
add up to more than the total number of visits.

Officials said a leveling off of illegal drug cases is significant given
the steep increases in illegal drug use and emergency room visits between
1990 and 1994.

"We've watched the upward side of the slope begin to turn down," said Bob
Weiner, spokesman for McCaffrey.

Earlier this month, President Clinton released the Monitoring the Future
survey by the University of Michigan, showing an increased number of
eighth-graders disapproving of drug use. But that annual survey also found
that more 10th and 12th graders had tried marijuana at least once, and
cocaine use by high school seniors increased.

Another national survey released this summer showed the use of illegal
drugs by teen-agers down slightly but still much higher than it was in
1992.

Yesterday's survey, released by the Department of Health and Human
Services, also found:

The number of cocaine-related episodes was unchanged from 1994 and 1995
after rising 78 percent between 1990 and 1994.

Marijuana-related cases continued to increase, although the difference
between 1995 and 1996 Speed-related cases -- 10,787 in 1996 -- dropped 39
percent from 1994 after more than tripling since 1991. The decline in
methamphetamine was partly due to a shortage of the drug.

HHS Secretary Donna Shalala noted the growing number of marijuana cases --
more than 50,000 in 1996. The growth "provides a loud and clear message
that marijuana is a powerful drug with potentially serious consequences,"
she said in a statement.

"Drug abuse has real and severe consequences for the abusers themselves,
for their families, for the health care system and for taxpayers," she
added.