How Many People Are Using Heroin Today?
Heroin usage rates have remained relatively stable since about 2000, though this doesn’t mean that heroin use is no longer a significant problem in the United States: • According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), almost four million Americans report having tried heroin at least once. • In 2006, a national survey on drug use showed that 560,000 people had used heroin at least once during the previous 12 months, but due to the difficulty in collecting accurate data from a transient community of heroin users, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) estimates the true amount to be almost twice that number — meaning that as many as one million people have likely used heroin at least once in the past twelve months. • The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reported that 106 000 people tried heroin for the first time in 2007. The average age of initiation was 21.8. Both statistics are essentially the same as what was reported for 2
