The Indexing and Analysis of Drug Indulgence

Abstract

An index of drug indulgence is constructed by deriving sets of appropriate index weights for each state of use of each drug from the data distribution. A user thus has one weight from each drug scale according to his involvement, and his drug-use index is defined as the average of these weights. The index inherently places more weight on drugs less commonly used than the more commonly used ones. Data from 38 males and 35 female users are analyzed, and it is found that males are 11 points higher than the females and that there are no significant correlations between drug uses.