Drugs

Have we lost today? Not at all. High-rate cocaine use is not commonplace. The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that less than 5 percent of high-school seniors used cocaine within the last thirthy days. Of course this survey misses young people who have dropped out of school and miscounts those who lie on the questionnaire, but even if we inflate, the NIDA estimate by some plausible percentage, it is still not much above 5 percent. Medical examiners reported in 1987 that about 1500 died from cocaine use; hospital emergency rooms reported about 30000 admissions related to cocaine abuse. (Contemporary Moral Problems, James E. White, page 398)