So who are the people in drug
emergencies and how do we help them? Let's consider who they
are first. Because even though they can be almost anyone,
they tend not to be.
According to figures compiled by the Drug Abuse Warning Network
(DAWN), a federally-funded information project that monitors
hospital emergency room admissions and drug-related deaths, drug
victims are predominantly male, non-white, and young.
Specifically, of the 601,776 emergencies tracked by the project
in their year-end 2000 report, more than 51.4 percent involved
males, 48.6 percent females.
Ethnically, the numbers show a disproportionate share of Blacks
and Hispanics, with 22 percent and 11 percent of total admissions,
respectively. Whites were involved in 56 percent of the DAWN
emergencies.
In terms of age, ER victims tend to be younger than drug fatalities.
According to DAWN, 53.7 percent of all drug-related ER cases
in 2000 involved people under age 34, while 72 percent of the
11,651 drug fatalities tracked during 1999 involved people 35
and over.
Why did they seek help -- or have help sought for them?
More than 43.9 percent were overdoses, while 15.4 percent were
labeled "unexpected reactions." Chronic effects were
cited in another 8.7 percent of admissions. The balance were
in various stages of withdrawal or seeking detoxification, or
were victims of accidents and injuries.
Those are the demographics -- pictures of people made of numbers.
We'll consider other numbers throughout this booklet to prepare
you for what you're likely to encounter in an emergency.
The numbers should help in providing a context for understanding
emergencies -- most-often-used drugs, lethality, duration of
effect, etc.
But in a more fundamental way, numbers can never completely prepare
you to help in a crisis.
That's because statistics are built on averages, and people in
crisis go to extremes.
To discover the qualities you'll need (or need to master) to
respond effectively, you'll need a little intuition and a lot
of training.
You'll also need to consider the interpersonal skills that are
important in a crisis -- and invaluable in a crisis helper.
