The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) included illicit drugs such as, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants and illegal use of prescription type pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, and sedatives. Estimates reported in NSDUH survey, include all the nine categories of illicit drugs.

According to the survey, the rate of the illicit drug use among persons aged 12 or older was higher for males than for females in 2009 and these rates are 10.8 and 6.6 percent in males and females respectively. Use of illicit drugs includes marijuana, psycho therapeutics and cocaine. Use of all these drugs by the males are higher than females in the given time period. The rates of past month non medical use of tranquilizers and methamphetamine are same in both males and females.

The rate of use of illicit drug among the males aged 12 or older increased from 9.9 percent in 2008 to 10.8 percent in 2009. But the use of illicit drugs for the females of the same age group did not differ significantly in the same time period. There was also an increase in the rates of current use of marijuana, non medical use of psycho therapeutics, pain relievers and sedatives. Past month marijuana use among males aged 12 to 17 declined from 9.1 percent in 2002 to 6.8 percent in 2006, then increased to 8.3 percent in 2009. Among females, there were no statistically significant differences between the 2008 and 2009 rates for any drugs.

Males had higher rates than females for current use of illicit drugs overall in the 2009 among the youths aged 12 to 17 and the percentage was 10.6 and 9.4 for men and women respectively. The rates of non medical use of drugs like psycho therapeutic and pain killers were higher in the females when compared to males.