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National Institute on Drug Abuse - NIDA NOTES
Women and Drug Abuse
Volume 10, Number 1
January/February 1995

About Women, Drug Abuse, and AIDS

  • Almost half of all women in their childbearing years, ages 15 to 44, have used illicit drugs at least once in their lives.

  • 10.3 million women age 12 and older have used at least one illegal drug in the past year.

  • More than 4.4 million women age 12 and older currently use illegal drugs.

  • 4 million women have taken prescription drugs nonmedically during the past year.

  • An estimated 221,000 women who gave birth in the United States in 1992 used illicit drugs while they were pregnant.

  • AIDS is now the fourth leading cause of death among women ages 25 to 44 in the United States.

  • More than 34,000--about 67 percent--of the AIDS cases among women are drug related.

Sources:

  • 1993 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse
  • NIDA National Pregnancy and Health Survey
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, June 1994.

From NIDA NOTES, January/February, 1995

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