Methamphetamine Involved in Rising Number of Heroin Treatment Admissions

Methamphetamine is involved in an increasing number of treatment admissions for heroin, especially among adolescents, astudy inAddiction has found.“The phenomenon of increasing methamphetamine use among people using opioids is of great concern,” Christopher M. Jones, Pharm.D., Dr.P.H., M.P.H., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and colleagues wrote. “Methamphetamine use carries its own risks, including a range of physical and mental health consequences such as psychosis and other mental disorders; cognitive and neurologic deficits; cardiovascular and renal dysfunction; transmission of HIV, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections; and increased mortality.”The researchers analyzed data from more than 3.5 million treatment admissions for heroin between 2008 and 2017. The data came from the Treatment Episode Data Set, a national database that provides information on the admissions of people aged 12 years and older to federally funded substance use treatment centers. The percentage of primary heroin treatment admissions reporting methamphetamine use rose each year from 2.1% in 2008 to 12.4% in 2017, an increase of 490%.In 2017, individuals aged 12 to 24 had the highest rates of admissions for heroin use involving methamphetamine of all the age groups examined: 27.8% of heroin treatment admissions for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years involved methamphetamine, and 17.4% of heroin treatment admissions for young adults aged 18 to 24 involved methamph...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: addiction adolescents Christopher M. Jones heroin methamphetamine polysubstance use treatment Treatment Episode Data Set young adults Source Type: research