Summary/Abstract

The CEWG is a unique epidemiology network that has functioned since 1976 to identify and assess current and emerging drug abuse patterns, trends, and issues, using multiple sources of existing information.

Content

This Executive Summary provides a synthesis of findings from the 75th semiannual meeting of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Community Epidemiology Work Group (CEWG) held by webinar on January 22–23, 2014.
The CEWG is a network of researchers from sentinel sites throughout the United States. It meets semiannually to provide ongoing community-level public health surveillance of drug abuse through presentation and discussion of quantitative and qualitative data. CEWG representatives access multiple sources of existing data from their local areas to report on drug abuse patterns and consequences in their areas and to provide an alert to potentially emerging new issues. Local area data are supplemented, as possible, with data available from federally supported projects, such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN); Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS); the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) II program; and the DEA, Heroin Domestic Monitor Program (HDMP). This descriptive and analytic information is used to inform the health and scientific communities and the general public about the current nature and patterns of drug abuse, emerging trends, and consequences of drug abuse.
The CEWG convenes twice yearly, in January and June. For the June meetings, CEWG representatives prepare full reports on drug abuse patterns and trends in their areas. After the meeting, a Highlights and Executive Summary Report is produced, and the full CEWG area reports are included in a second volume (in June 2014, the full area reports will be available individually on the NIDA Web site and will not be compiled in a second volume). For the January report, the representatives present an abbreviated report to provide an update on data newly available since the prior June report and to identify significant issues that have emerged since the prior meeting. These abbreviated reports, or update briefs, are available on the NIDA Web site.
The majority of the January 2014 meeting was devoted to the CEWG area reports and presentations. CEWG area representatives presented data on local drug abuse patterns and trends. Other highlights of the meeting included a welcome from Wilson Compton, M.D., M.P.E., Deputy Director of NIDA, and presentations by DEA representatives Jeffrey H. Comparin, with an update on the special testing and research laboratory; Wanda Iyoha, who gave a STRIDE (System to Retrieve Information From Drug Evidence) update on heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine trends; and Sarah Bourne, who provided an overview of U.S. drug trends from the 2013 National Drug Threat Assessment.
This Highlights and Executive Summary Report for the January 2014 CEWG meeting includes highlights from the meeting, CEWG area reports, and discussions and cross-site data compilations.

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