According to federal government studies, shifts in the international drug market have doubled heroin production since the mid-1980s, leading to lower street prices for the drug. Those same studies conclude there are about eight million heroin abusers worldwide, with approximately a quarter of that group - two million - in the United States.

Crime and heroin addiction have long been associated together. This is due to many reasons such as the fact that heroin importation and distribution are illegal. Also, heroin and crime are synonymous because many addicted people turn to theft and prostitution to obtain money to buy the drug. Violent competition between drug dealers has resulted in many murders and the deaths of innocent bystanders. From 1979 through 1990 arrests for heroin manufacture, sale, or possession in the United States held steady, but in the 1990s arrests rose as the drug's popularity began to increase once more.

Data has shown that people high on marijuana show the same lack of coordination on standard "drunk driver" tests as do people who have had to much to drink.

According to 2005 DEA statistics, New York state, with a population exceeding 19,000,000, had 35 Meth Lab Incidents. North Dakota, population 636,677 had 159 for the same year, Nebraska had 224 and Iowa had 753!