Explanation of Comparison Chart Types

Ultimately, my goal is simply to make it as easy as possible for people to see what is really going on with regard to the use of various drugs. The annual quotes about the use of drug "X" increasing or decreasing are for the most part quite useless. So what I've done here is to take the long term data available for several age demographics and plotted them all out in a variety of ways. I then built context and navigation pages that help people see the "big picture" and provide a way to easily move back and forth between various graphics and tables for comparison. Each of the chart types shows a different perspective and they act cumulatively to paint an extraordinary look behind the various claims being made about the use of these drugs. The data for each specific demographic covers all years for which data are available: 1975 through 2004 for 12th Grade Students, 1980 through 2004 for College Students, and 1986 through 2004 for ages 19 to 28. Data comparisons across demographics cover the years 1986 through 2004 as that is the limit imposed by the source data. Also available for comparison is data on the initiation of drug use and more particularly the comparisons in ratios of use of various drugs versus alcohol, versus marijuana, and versus both. See below for specific explanations of chart types. All reporting of drug use in the national studies is given in percentages, thus all charts involving use rates are also presented as percentages and are portrayed in the range of 0 to 100. That lends itself to better appreciation of the actual scope of use for each drug and normalizing the presentation certainly aids in the comprehension of the data. For all ratios of use, the charts are normalized on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 and reflect the number of users of drug "X" compared to the number of users of drug "Y" (where drug "Y" is either alcohol or marijuana). Some charts -- mainly those involving crack and heroin -- are available in "magnified" views where the ratios are simply too low to be coherent in the normalized view.

These charts help reveal differences and similarites in drug use across demographic groups. The charts reflect the percentage of people within each demographic who admit to having used the depicted drug within the depicted time frame. They are available for comparisons across demographics for lifetime, past year and past month use and are all standardized to a scale of 0 to 100 percent.

In essence, the total number of alcohol users represents the maximum number of drug users in a population. Comparing the use of various drugs versus the use of alcohol gives us a better understanding of the popularity of various drugs relative to alcohol. All of the charts of this type are normalized on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0 where the relationship is the number of users of drug "X" per one user of alcohol.

These charts combine the views offered in the two chart styles above. This allows us to look at the popularity of drug "X" vs alcohol across demographic groups so we can observe age related patterns of use. Once again, the scale runs from 0.0 to 1.0 and indicates how many users of drug "X" per user of alcohol for each demographic depicted for the frequency of use shown.

These charts show the trends in use of other drugs versus marijuana for each specific demographic group across frequency of use. They are also scaled from 0.0 to 1.0 and depict the number of users of other drugs per one marijuana user.

As with the alcohol ratios, these charts allow us to look at the popularity of drug "X" vs marijuana across demographic groups so we can observe age related patterns of use. Once again, the scale runs from 0.0 to 1.0 and indicates how many users of drug "X" per user of marijuana for each demographic over the period of use shown.

Since alcohol is a drug, and marijuana is the most popular illegal drug, these graphs offer a unique glimpse into drug use behaviors. They are a combination of the use ratios for drug "X" for a given demographic and period of use. Once again they are scaled from 0.0 to 1.0 and show the number of users of drug "X" per one alcohol user and per one marijuana user for the period indicated.

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