The U.S. has long struggled with drug abuse, but its prevalence is growing. The percentage of people who admit to ever using an illicit drug has risen from 31.3 percent in 1979 to 48.8 percent in 2015, according to National Institute of Drug Abuse data cited by WalletHub.
The number of deaths per year caused by overdoses has more than tripled from 2000 (with 17,415 deaths) to 2015 (with 52,404), and the rate at which people are jailed for drug offenses has also increased dramatically; more than 11 times more people were incarcerated for drug offenses in 2015 (469,545) than in 1980 (40,900), according to The Sentencing Project.
To identify where drug abuse is most pronounced across the U.S., WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 15 key metrics, ranging from arrest and overdose rates to opioid prescriptions and meth-lab incidents per capita.
Here are the states with the most drug abuse, according to the study.
1. Washington, D.C.
2. Vermont
3. Colorado
4. Delaware
5. Rhode Island
6. Oregon
7. Connecticut
8. Arizona
9. Massachusetts
10. Michigan
11. New Hampshire
12. West Virginia
13. New York
14. Indiana
15. Louisiana
16. Missouri
17. Maine
18. Maryland
19. Washington
20. North Carolina
Here are five more highlights from the WalletHub study.
1. Alabama has the most opioid prescriptions in the U.S., with 142.9 prescriptions for every 100 residents. Hawaii has the least, with 52 opioid prescriptions for every 100 Hawaiians.
2. West Virginia has the most drug overdose deaths, with 42 fatal overdoses for every 100,000 residents. That rate is six times higher than Nebraska, which has the fewest overdose deaths with 7 per 100,000 residents.
3. Colorado has the highest percentage of teens who used illicit drugs in the past month, at 14.58 percent. Iowa has the lowest rate of 6.31 percent. Colorado also has the highest percentage of adults who used illicit drugs in the past month, at 17.06 percent, while South Dakota has the lowest, at 5.76 percent.
4. New Jersey has the highest percentage of teens who have been offered, sold or given an illegal drug on school property, at 30.7 percent. Iowa has the lowest rate, at 11.9 percent.
5. Washington, D.C., has the highest percentage of adults who needed but didn't receive treatment for illicit drug use in the past year, at 3.21 percent. Wyoming has the lowest rate of 1.83 percent.