The national and regional estimates presented in these visualizations are based on the National Estimates Based on All Reports (NEAR) approach and were pulled from the NFLIS annual and midyear reports (available at: https://www.nflis.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/Reports.aspx). The NEAR approach adjusts the number of reports of drugs recorded and submitted by NFLIS-Drug laboratories by accounting for nonreporting and nonsampled laboratories and “allows for inferences to be made of the total number of analyzed drug reports in the entire NFLIS-Drug ‘universe’ of State and local forensic drug laboratories.”1
The national and regional trends presented in these data visualizations are the plotted lines of the NFLIS-Drug report estimates. To determine statistically significant changes in estimates, please see the NFLIS-Drug Annual and Midyear Reports published by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Because the DEA reports include results from regression analyses that test for linear and curved trends, the descriptions of trends detailed in the DEA reports may differ slightly from the plotted lines included in these data visualizations.2
To learn more about NFLIS, please refer to the Overview & Limitations and Data Terms documents or see DEA reference and guidance materials referenced below.
SOURCES
1U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Diversion Control Division. (undated). National Forensic Laboratory Information System: NFLIS Public Resources Library, NFLIS Questions and Answers (Q&A). Retrieved from https://www.nflis.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/Resources/NFLISPublicResourceLibrary.aspx
2U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Diversion Control Division. (2019). National Forensic Laboratory Information System: NFLIS-Drug 2018 Annual Report. Springfield, VA: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Retrieved from: https://www.nflis.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/Reports.aspx
Revised: January 2020
