Usage Statistics within Puerto Rico in 2017

Introduction

With statistics in Puerto Rico, information is scarce. Only one paper was found, which is the one referenced here. It was published in March 2018 and it utilizes data from a survey done in 2013-14. This survey was designed to study social and familial factor associated with drinking. The analysis done provides 12-month rates of any drug use, use of various illegal drugs, and use of legal drugs used in a non-prescribed manner. Two previous papers analyzed drug use in household samples of Puerto Rican adults. One analyzed 1987 data and reported that the proportion of ever-users was 8.2% (men: 12.1%; women: 4.8%), and lifetime DSM-III drug abuse and/or dependence was 1.2% (men: 2.2%; women: 0.37%). Another reported information taken from a 1998 survey which showed a past year rate of illegal drug use of 2.6% with DSM-IV abuse and dependence present in 1.3% of the sample. Apart from those done, there wasn't much more found on opioid use and abuse statistics for Puerto Rico. The investigation referenced is titled "Illegal drug use and its correlates in San Juan, Puerto Rico".

Results

Overall, a little less than 1 in 6 adults in San Juan, Puerto Rico used an illegal drug or a licit drug in a non-prescribed way in the previous 12 months (Table 1). The prevalence of this use was 20.6% among men and 12.9% among women. The most prevalent drug was marijuana, which was used by just over 10% of the adult population. This was followed by opiates, speed/amphetamines, tranquilizers, and cocaine/ crack, which all had prevalence rates between 2% and 3%. Heroin/ opium, hallucinogens, and methadone were all used by less than 1% of the adult population. If all the opium derivatives (Opiates, Heroin, opium & methadone) are added up, the total usage of this drug group would be 3.99% of the prevalence use in Puerto Rico. This would still put opioids as the second most utilized drug group in 2013-14.

This table illustrates usage statistics for all drug groups studied, the totals for opioids being 3.99%,
divided here in: Opiates, Methadone and Heroin/Opium.

Results correlating sociodemographic with of drug use were not surprising. Men were more than 1.5x more likely than women to report past year drug use. Those who were 18–29 and 30–39 years of age were approximately 2x more likely to use drugs compared to those 50 years of age and older. Those with low to medium family cohesion and/or pride were 2x and 1.5x more likely, respectively, to use drugs than those with high family cohesion and/or pride. Respondents with “no religious preference” were 2x more likely than those identified as Catholics to report drug use. Finally, those with an annual family income above $40,000 were protected against drug use in comparison to those with an annual income equal to or less than $10,000. This reflects previous findings for Puerto Rico and for the U.S. mainland. Low and medium family cohesion and/or pride are also positively associated with drug use. Family cohesion has been identified as protective against a series of problem behaviors among Hispanics. Similarly, “no religion” is positively associated with drug use. Results in the literature consistently indicate that religion is negatively correlated with alcohol and drug use. Finally, an annual income above $40,000 is associated with decreased odds of drug use. Findings on this topic are fragmented, with papers focusing on different population subgroups (e.g., adolescents, low income populations) and different measures of income (e.g., personal, familial, neighborhood level). This could be the reason why the results are not as cohesive as those observed with the US statistics.

This table breaks down all the statistics analyzed and compiled for this study.

In conclusion, with this paper was tried to achieve, was done but not to its full potencial. More surveys could've been administered to a bigger population size, thus making the results more palpable and believable. Also, these types of studies should be done annually as they can be compared and demographics of a posible epidemic can be determined by their own statistics. This would be as opposed to basing the courses of action off the statistics seen in the US, which are not comparable because of the different socioeconomic situations of their people and the obvious physical differences in country sizes.