According to figures, Colorado adults outpace the rest of the country in cocaine consumption data released this year by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
According to the agency, in 2021 and 2022, about 3.06% of adults in Colorado had used cocaine in the past year, compared to 1.95% of adults in the United States.
Colorado topped the list of the 50 states surveyed, tied with Washington, D.C. Vermont in second place, with 2.99% of adults having recently used the drug, followed by DC, where 2.79% of adults had recently used cocaine has used.
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health calculates drug use rates based on two consecutive years of data, and the agency recommends against comparing state-level data collected in 2020 with other years due to changes in how data was collected during the COVID-19 crisis. pandemic. Similar state-level data for 2022 and 2023 has yet to be released.
But even before the pandemic, Colorado led the way in cocaine use among adults, with 4.46% of adults reporting using the drug between 2018 and 2019, ahead of DC in second place and Vermont in third.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment estimates that 269 people fatally overdosed on cocaine in 2021, followed by 256 in 2022. About a quarter of these overdose deaths occurred in Denver County.
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