Description of Drug Users in Treatment: 1971–1972 DARP Admissions

Abstract

The 1971–1972 DARP patient sample can be generally described as follows: (1) males were the largest in number (76%), and most patients (73%) were in the age range of 18 to 30 at the time of admission; (2) ethnically, blacks and whites were predominant (46% and 36%, respectively), with smaller representations of Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans; (3) pretreatment drug use generally involved opiates daily (68%); (4) most patients began drug use with marihuana (57%) or heroin (21%), usually between the ages of 14 and 20 years old; (5) pretreatment alcohol consumption was generally low, with 68% of the sample reporting their average daily use was zero; and (6) the majority of the sample completed 10 to 12 years of education and had spent time in jail, while 40% were legally involved at the time of admission and almost one-third reported that their major source of support was illegal.