Drug addiction in Utah
Claims
"1/5 of Utah women under 18 are addicted to alcohol and other drugs."
- Frederick C. Kubicek, The Mormon Gospel: Is it Christian?, Unlimited Glory Ministries
Are 20% of Utah girls addicted to alcohol or drugs?
This claim is a misquotation of a newspaper article reporting on the Utah Division of Substance Abuse's 2001 annual report. The newspaper article actually said:
The annual snapshot of drug abuse in Utah shows that more than 100,000 Utahns, about a fifth of whom are under age 18, are addicted to alcohol and other drugs.1
The article appears to be paraphrasing the following statement from the DSA report:
More than 100,000 of your fellow citizens in the State of Utah suffer from an addiction to alcohol and/or other drugs. Of that number, almost 20,000 are under the age of 18.2
Now the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the number of Utah women under 18 in 2001 at 353,867.3 So even if we assume that all 20,000 drug addicts are women, that would mean that the ratio of Utah women under 18 who are addicted to alcohol or drugs is less than 1/17, not 1/5. However, women account for 32% of patients admitted to drug treatment facilities,4 so if we assume that only 32% of the 20,000 are women, that lowers the ratio to about 1/55 or 1.8%. In either case, the situation is not nearly as bad as Mr. Kubicek claims.
Sources
1 James Thalman, "Meth use by Utah women soaring", Deseret News, 2/19/2002.
2 Patrick J. Fleming, Director, Utah Division of Substance Abuse. Division of Substance Abuse 2001 Annual Report, p. III.
3 U.S. Census Bureau, State Population Projections: 2001 to 2005.
4 Division of Substance Abuse 2001 Annual Report, p. 2-8.
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