Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

May 30, 2011

Illicit Drug Use Among Americans in 2009

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: — Winson @ 9:41 AM

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) included 9 categories of illicit drugs which includes use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants and the non medical use of prescription type pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives. In this survey, hashish is included with marijuana, and crack is considered as a form of cocaine. LSD, PCP, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin mushrooms, and ecstasy are included under hallucinogens. Inhalants includes nitrous oxide, amyl nitrite, cleaning fluids, gasoline, spray paint, other aerosol sprays, and glue.

In United States an estimated 21.8 million Americans aged 12 or older were current users of illicit drugs in 2009. It means that 8.7 percent of the population aged 12 or older are users of illicit drugs. This rate was higher than the rate in 2008.

In 2009, marijuana was the most commonly abused illicit drug and was used by 76.6 percent of current illicit drug users. 42 percent of the illicit drug users abused drugs other than marijuana. Current use of other drugs but not marijuana was reported by 23.4 percent of illicit drug users, and 18.6 percent used both marijuana and other drugs. The estimated number and percentage of persons aged 12 or older who used cocaine in the past month in 2009 were similar to those in 2008. Hallucinogens were used in the past month by 1.3 million persons aged 12 or older in 2009, including 760,000 who had used Ecstasy.

Number of the non medical users of psycho therapeutic drugs in 2009 were higher than in 2008. Statistically significant increases in the percentage using stimulants and sedatives contributed to this increase. Number of non medical users of stimulants increased from 904,000 in 2008 to 1.3 million in 2009. The number of past month methamphetamine users increased from 314,000 in 2008 to 502,000 in 2009. Rates for any psycho therapeutic drug use in 2009 were similar to those in 2007.

August 18, 2010

Treatment Statistics of Drug Abuse

Filed under: Substance Abuse — Tags: , — Winson @ 8:07 AM

Year by year the usage of drugs has been increasing. Regardless of the age considerations, the usage has been improved. Many people are using different types of drugs for recreational purposes. The illicit usage may lead to addiction and in those cases, treatment is needed. The treatment centers are increasing and the number of people who attend the treatment programs are also increasing.

According to National Survey of Drug And Health(NSDUH), during the year 2008, 7.6 million people aged above 12 were treated for illicit drug usage, which is nearly 3.0% of the total population. During the past year, 1.2 million people, i.e., 0.5% of the total population and 16% of the people needed treatment took the treatment under the specialty facility for an illicit drug use problem. Remaining 6.4 million people did not receive the treatment. The statistics for the years 2007 and 2008 were almost same. When compared to the year 2002 the illicit drug usage has been decreased and the decrement is 0.3%.

Out of people who did not receive the treatment some said that they had put efforts for the treatment, but some of them said that they had not put any efforts to get treated.

Now coming to the statistics of youth, aged between 12 and 17, there were altogether 1.2 million people i.e. Around 4.8% people in need of the treatment for the illicit drugs usage in the year 2008. But out of this, only 111,000 received treatment under the specialty facility which is around 9.3% of the youth need treatment aged between 12 and 17. The rest 1.1 million youth did not receive treatment under specialty facility.

The people who did not take the treatment said so many reasons like not ready to stop using, no health coverage and cannot afford the cost of the treatment.

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March 10, 2010

Automobile Industry Suffers Recession

Filed under: Business — Tags: , , , — Winson @ 3:29 AM

Recession started to effect on global scale economy from the mid of 2008. This resulted in declining automobile sales and triggered widespread automotive industry crisis. This recession majorly affected the US automotive car industry. Many US car manufacturers face the problem of bailout and restructuring.

As per the New York Times, recession occurred mainly to US car industry because of bad business practices by “Big Three” U.S. automakers. These are:

  • General Motors
  • Ford
  • Chrysler

This fact can be justified by the example of Asian car manufacturer. These foreign-owned car companies also manufacture automobile in US and experienced no such problems. They have deep pockets and ample credits.

Because of following reason the US Big Three suffered in the recession:

  • Expensive automobile fuels price in the 2003-2008 oil crisis led to turn from SUV’s (sport utility vehicles)
  • High labor costs and their other counterparts like salaries, benefits, healthcare, and pensions.
  • Uncompetitive cost structures

The year 2008 heavily destructed the US automobile industry.

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December 9, 2009

Salt lake wins MLS cup in 2009

Filed under: Sports — Winson @ 12:44 AM

The 14th season league is the 2009 Major Soccer League. The MLS cup is the Pinnacle of professional Soccer in the United States. This is the second major soccer Championship played in Qwest field. There was a gathering of 46,011, the forth highest in MLS cup history, and it was seventh highest crowd in Qwest field History. The final was played at Qwest field in Seattle, Washington, and Real Salt Lake. The Major Soccer League Season played on 22 November 2009. Eastern Conference Champion Real Salt Lake and Western Conference Champion Loss Angeles Galaxy contested the match. Real salt Lake and Loss Angeles met twice during the regular season. Real Salt Lake won the game.

Moreover, their first MLS cup after winning 5-4 in a penalty shootout in a following 1-1 draw. ESPN televised the match in English and Galavision in Spanish. This was the first time the MLS Championship televised in Cable network.

November 23, 2009

Explosions at Airports in Thailand Created Political Crisis

Filed under: Society & Politics — Tags: — Winson @ 7:09 AM

On November 26, 2008, the explosions at two Bangkok airports provoked the closure of its main international gateway, which is a major center in the region for travelers. These explosions in airport are done by thousands of anti-government protesters to object the return of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from the APEC summit held in Peru. The PAD (People’s Alliance for Democracy), which is an anti-goverment group, has been conducting protests against the government, for being a reason for expelling former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Protesters surrounded the parliament building on Monday, forcing lawmakers to postpone their session. Incoming flights have been diverted to other airports around Thailand and the region and the helpless passengers are made to fly out by other means. The closing of Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports from November 25 to December 4 stopped 3.4 million tourists from visiting Thailand. There is a huge loss in many sectors. There is loss of 120 billion baht (currency of Thailand) (4.75 billion dollars) in the service industry, 90 billion baht (3.56 billion dollars) in logistics and 60 billion baht (2.38 billion dollars) in industry (ANI). The continous political crisis has frustrated government from decision-making and weakened investor faith in Thailand’s economy.

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