Psychotherapeutic drugs. Use among adults in California.

Abstract

A cross-section survey of adults in California provides the following information about use of prescription and non-prescription stimulants, sedatives, and tranquilizers.* One person in two has used one or more of these drugs at one time or another. About three persons in ten have used them in the past 12 months.* Frequent use is reported by 17 percent of the adults sampled and occurs among almost twice as many women as men.* Relatively high proportions of frequent drug users are also found among persons who are divorced or separated, and among those with no religious affiliation. Relatively low proportions are found among persons in skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled occupations.* Contrary to expectation, neither income nor education is very highly related to frequent use of psychoactive drugs. Actual differences may be obscured, however, by the fact that questions in this preliminary investigation combined both prescription and non-prescription drugs. Early returns from a survey now going on in San Francisco indicate that use of ethical drugs is indeed more common in better educated and higher income groups.* Patterns of frequent drug use by age clearly reflect changing needs and stresses. Men, for example, are most likely to report use of stimulants in their 30s, tranquilizers in their 40s and 50s, and sedatives from age 60 on.* Data suggest that persons in low status socio-economic groups are less likely than others to have used psychoactive drugs (in particular, tranquilizers), but those who use them are more likely to have done so frequently. One explanation offered was that these persons do not have as ready access to such drugs as others do. Consequently, there is a selective factor operating: only those whose need for drugs is relatively great actually get them.