Map Monday: States with the Biggest Drug Problems

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 StateTotal Score Drug Use & Addiction Law Enforcement Drug Health Issues & Rehab 
1West Virginia58.424323
2District of Columbia57.241297
3Arkansas54.021449
4Missouri53.3629112
5New Mexico52.678725
6Nevada52.419371
7Colorado52.401768
8Michigan52.0913194
9Oregon49.667432
10Tennessee48.9132532
Lowest Drug Use by State
40Wisconsin35.34421046
41Alabama34.42285119
42Georgia34.18383626
43South Dakota33.87491128
44Virginia33.77441743
45Nebraska33.58482217
46North Dakota33.1951545
47Iowa32.81433324
48Idaho30.30473129
49Utah28.57453441
50Hawaii25.20394551
51Minnesota22.93503949
Drug Abuse & Prevention in Georgia (1=Biggest Problem; 25=Avg.)
  • 50th – Share of Teenagers Who Used Illicit Drugs in the Past Month
  • 43rd – Share of Adults Who Used Illicit Drugs in the Past Month
  • 42nd – Drug Overdose Deaths per Capita
  • 34th – Drug Arrests per Capita
  • 51st – Share of Adults Who Couldn’t Get Treatment for Illicit Drug Use in the Past Year
Graphic by WalletHub

More on the study and findings.

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