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Law enforcement seizures of drugs, particularly marijuana and methamphetamine, dropped at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, then increased significantly in the following months exceeding pre-pandemic seizure rates and providing clues about the impact of the crisis on substance use, according to a new study in the journal
Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
The research was conducted as part of the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS), which uses real-time surveillance to detect early signals of potential drug epidemics. NDEWS is led by a team of researchers at the University of Florida, New York University, and Florida Atlantic University, and is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.