Consequences of Use

Home < Drug Info < Consequences of Alcohol/Drug Use

Consequences of Alcohol Use

Annually, more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S.. are attributable to excessive alcohol consumption. Causes directly or indirectly related to alcohol deaths include drunk driving, cancer, stroke, cirrhosis of the liver, falls, and other adverse effects.¹
Alcohol and other drug abuse cost the Texas economy an estimated $25.9 billion for 2000 – $1,244 for every man, woman, and child in the state.²
Dallas leads the nation in the rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths.²
Underage drinking costs the nation almost $60 billion a year — enough to buy every public school student a state-of-the-art computer. In Texas, the cost is more than $5.5 billion a year. Costs include traffic crashes, violent crime, burns, drowning, suicide attempts, fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol poisoning, and treatments.³
More than 40% of separated or divorced women were married to or lived with a problem drinker or alcoholic, compared with less than 20% of separated or divorced mens.¹
Approximately 240,000 to 360,000 of the nation’s 12 million current undergraduates will ultimately die from alcohol-related causes — more than the number that will get M.A.s and Ph.D.s combined.⁴
Problem drinkers average four times as many days in the hospital as nondrinkers, mostly because of drinking-related injuries.¹
Among current adult drinkers, more than half say they have a blood relative who is or was an alcoholic or problem drinkers.¹

Consequences of Other Drug Use

The annual economic cost of substance abuse to the U.S. economy is estimated at over $414 billion.¹
There are more deaths, illness, and disabilities from substance abuse than from any other preventable health condition. One in four deaths is attributable to alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use.¹
At least half of adults arrested for major crimes — including homicide, theft, and assault — tested positive for drugs at the time of their arrest. Among those convicted of violent crimes, approximately half of state prisons inmates and 40% of federal prisoners had been drinking or taking drugs at the time of their offense.¹
Of newly diagnosed HIV cases in the U.S. 32% occur among injecting drug users or people who have had sexual contact with theme.¹
Among full-time workers, heavy drinkers and illicit drug users are more likely than those who do not drink heavily or use illicit drugs to have skipped work in the past month or have worked for three or more employers in the past year.¹
Alcohol and drug abuse are factors in the placement of more than 75% of children entering foster care.¹
Drug-related deaths have more than doubled since the early 1980s.²
More than one-third of all AIDS deaths in the United States have occurred among injecting drug users and their sexual partners. AIDS among this group is a major cause of illicit drug-related deaths, with a disproportionate impact on minority Americans.¹

Consequences of Tobacco Use

Each year, more than five million years of life could have been saved if every person who died that year from tobacco use had lived to their average life expectancy.¹
Each year more than 1 billion pieces of litter will accumulate on Texas highways. Of those, 13% are cigarette butts. That means 130 million butts will be tossed out in Texas alone this year.¹
Cigarettes are the most littered item in the world. Cigarette filters, which are made of cellulose acetate (a plastic) not cotton, can take decades to degrade. The toxic residue contained in each littered butt is released into the environment and water supply. Additionally, littered cigarette butts are a leading cause of forest fire.⁶
Between 1990–1994, cigarette smoking accounted for 2.2 million deaths — an average of 430,700 deaths a year, or 20% of all U.S. deaths.¹
If current smoking patterns continue, an estimated 25 million people alive today, including five million people currently under age 18, will die prematurely of a smoking-related disease.¹
Substance abuse drives up health care costs. In 1995, health care spending associated with alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse was estimated at more than $114 billion. Smoking accounted for 70% of these costs.¹
Lung cancer is responsible for 90% of deaths due to smoking.¹

Sources: 1 Substance Abuse: The Nation’s Number One Health Problem, Feb. 2001
2 National Center for Health Statistics
3 Pacific Institute of Research & Evaluation
4 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse
5 Texas Dept. of Transportation
6 CigaretteLitter.org