Map Monday: States with the Biggest Drug Problems • The Georgia Virtue

While the War on Drugs has proven to be a failure across demographics, the use of illegal drugs continues to be a problem in American society, whether it’s from a health perspective, law enforcement perspective, or judicial perspective.

Thirty years ago, the National Institute of Health wrote in an analysis, “Regardless of the priority that the public, political leaders, and the media attach to drug problems at particular points in time, drugs are unquestionably a significant social problem for the United States.” The same remains true today.

Personal financial site WalletHub recently compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia in three overall categories: 1) Drug Use & Addiction, 2) Law Enforcement and 3) Drug Health Issues & Rehab. They took into consideration data on overdoses, overdose-induced deaths, illicit drug use by minors and adults, drug arrests, prescription drug monitoring laws, maternity drug policies, and fourteen other metrics. [Full methodology]

So which states across America have the biggest drug problems? We take a look in this week’s Map Monday.

Source: WalletHub

Note: With the exception of “Total Score,” all of the columns in the tables below depict the relative rank of that state, where a rank of 1 represents the worst conditions for that metric category.

Highest Drug Use by State

Overall Rank	State	Total Score	Drug Use & Addiction	Law Enforcement	Drug Health Issues & Rehab
1	West Virginia	58.42	4	3	23
2	District of Columbia	57.24	1	29	7
3	Arkansas	54.02	14	4	9
4	Missouri	53.36	29	1	12
5	New Mexico	52.67	8	7	25
6	Nevada	52.41	9	37	1
7	Colorado	52.40	17	6	8
8	Michigan	52.09	13	19	4
9	Oregon	49.66	7	43	2
10	Tennessee	48.91	3	25	32

Lowest Drug Use by State

40	Wisconsin	35.34	42	10	46
41	Alabama	34.42	28	51	19
42	Georgia	34.18	38	36	26
43	South Dakota	33.87	49	11	28
44	Virginia	33.77	44	17	43
45	Nebraska	33.58	48	22	17
46	North Dakota	33.19	51	5	45
47	Iowa	32.81	43	33	24
48	Idaho	30.30	47	31	29
49	Utah	28.57	45	34	41
50	Hawaii	25.20	39	45	51
51	Minnesota	22.93	50	39	49

Drug Abuse & Prevention in Georgia (1=Biggest Problem; 25=Avg.)

50^th – Share of Teenagers Who Used Illicit Drugs in the Past Month
43^rd – Share of Adults Who Used Illicit Drugs in the Past Month
42^nd – Drug Overdose Deaths per Capita
34^th – Drug Arrests per Capita
51^st – Share of Adults Who Couldn’t Get Treatment for Illicit Drug Use in the Past Year