What does this measure?

The rate of people age 18 and older who have used cocaine, heroin, or marijuana in the past month.

Why is this important?

Drug use can have serious long-term physical and mental effects on user, including damage to one's heart, memory, kidneys and liver. Abuse and addiction take a large social and financial toll on a community and the individual, consuming financial and time resources often at the expense of one's livelihood and relationships. Depending on the method of consumption, drug use can also increase the risk of contracting diseases such as HIV/AIDS or hepatitis, and can lead to death from an accident or overdose.

How is our county doing?

In 2021-23, 29% of Essex County adults reported using marijuana in the last 30 days, while 2% report using cocaine, and 1% report using heroin. This is similar to usage at the state level. The rate of marijuana usage was higher in Essex than at the national level (22%).

How do we compare to similar counties?

Cocaine and heroin usage rates were similar across all comparison counties. The rate of marijuana usage was slightly lower in Lake County, IL (21%) and Westchester, NY (26%).

Notes about the data

Data come from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health sponsored by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA combined three years of responses to provide estimates for smaller geographic areas and increase the precision of its estimates.

For this indicator, the counties were defined by the "2021-23 National Survey on Drug Use and Health." Because of this, Essex County includes some parts of Middlesex County and Middlesex County includes some parts of Norfolk and Plymouth counties. In addition, the data for Westchester County contains two additional counties: Putnam and Rockland.