Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring

Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring, or ADAM, was a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice to gauge the prevalence of alcohol and illegal drug use among prior arrestees. It was a reformulation of the prior Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program, focused on five drugs in particular: cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, opiates, and PCP.

Methodology

Participants were randomly selected from arrest records in major metropolitan areas; because no personally identifying information is taken from each record chosen, the resulting data can be correlated to arrest rates, but not to the total population of persons charged.

ADAM began as the Drug Use Forecasting program in 1987, which tested arrestees in 13 (later 23) jurisdictions on a quarterly basis. In 1991, juvenile data was added for the first time, at select sites. In 1996, President Clinton requested that the program be expanded, as ADAM, by tripling the size to 75 metropolitan areas and adding an outreach component for non-metropolitan offenders, as a scientific control. At most, 42 jurisdictions ever participated in the program at one time.

Information was obtained from personal interviews and urine analysis obtained voluntarily and confidentially, usually on the day of arrest and always within 48 hours of arrest.

Under DUF, both male and female subjects were selected on a random basis. When ADAM was fully implemented in 2000, a different methodology was adopted, whereby male subjects were chosen at random and female subjects were chosen where available (not all participating sites have sufficient numbers of women arrestees to be statistically sound; ADAM defined this as 25 women available to be interviewed). In addition, the interview portion of the ADAM program was expanded to cover behaviors and drug use that could not be tested for by urinalysis, such as alcohol abuse. The catchment areas were redefined, from metropolitan area/city limits to county boundaries, in order to help standardize the data.

Cancellation

On January 29, 2004, the ADAM program was halted due to funding concerns; government sources state that a revised program was to be implemented in late 2005, which has not happened as of early 2006. Other federal measures of drug use focus on self-reporting, or on broad national trends.

Testing areas

These sites were used at some or all points of the DUF/ADAM studies as testing areas. Some of the smaller locations such as Woodbury County, Iowa and Rio Arriba, New Mexico were added late in the program's life, in an attempt to gain information about non-metropolitan areas.

External links

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