Compared to Distribution

an indicator guage with the arrow in the green the value is in the best half of communities.

an indicator guage with the arrow in the yellow the value is in the 2nd worst quarter of communities.

an indicator guage with the arrow in the red the value is in the worst quarter of communities.

Compared to Target

green circle with white tick inside it meets target; red circle with white cross inside it does not meet target.

Compared to a Single Value

green diamond with downward arrow inside it lower than the comparison value; red diamond with downward arrow inside it higher than the comparison value; blue diamond with downward arrow inside it not statistically different from comparison value.

Trend

green square outline with upward trending arrow inside it green square outline with downward trending arrow inside it non-significant change over time; green square with upward trending arrow inside it green square with downward trending arrow inside it significant change over time; blue square with equals sign no change over time.

Compared to Prior Value

green triangle with upward trending arrow inside it higher than the previous measurement period; green triangle with downward trending arrow inside it lower than the previous measurement period; blue equals sign no statistically different change from previous measurement period.

green chart bars Significantly better than the overall value

red chart bars Significantly worse than the overall value

light blue chart bars No significant difference with the overall value

gray chart bars No data on significance available

Adolescent Cocaine Use

Measurement Period: 2017

This indicator shows the percentage of high school students who used any form of cocaine (e.g., powder, crack, or freebase) one or more times during their life.

Why is this important?

Cocaine is one of the most dangerous drugs available to teenagers. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about six million people over the age of 12 have used cocaine at least once in the past year. Cocaine is highly addictive, and has serious long-term health effects including: headaches; abdominal pain and nausea; decreased appetite (often resulting in malnutrition); irritability, restlessness, anxiety and paranoia; paranoid psychosis (loss of touch with reality and auditory hallucinations); and increased risk of HIV and other diseases.

One of the most risky effects of teenage cocaine use is that the body can develop a tolerance to the drug, and the user needs increasingly larger doses of the drug to achieve the same feeling. This can increase the chance of an overdose, as the user takes successively greater amounts of cocaine in an effort to get high. In certain cases, first-time users of cocaine have suffered from sudden death, the possibility of which dramatically increases when alcohol is simultaneously consumed.

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