Shabu is the leading illegal drug abused in the Philippines for 2022, the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) has disclosed.

Citing its own data, the DDB said shabu has 92 percent "total admission", followed by marijuana with .65 percent.

“Mono-drug use is still the nature of drug-taking, the administration routes are inhalation/sniffing and oral ingestion,’’ the DDB reported.

Compared to mono-drug, polydrug use is the use of more than one drug or type of drug at the same time or one after another.

Polydrug use can involve both illicit drugs and legal substances, such as alcohol and medications.

In a statement, the DDB said that the center admissions consist of 90.06 percent males, 9.08 percent females and .85 percent from the LGBT community. 

The male-to-female ratio is 10 is to one with a computed mean of 33 years old and a median age of 34 years old with the youngest admission for the year under review is 13 years old and the eldest is 72 years old. 

“The majority of the admissions belong to the age group of 40 years old and above with thirty-one percent (31.23%) of the reported cases,’’ the DDB added.

The DDB pointed out that 52.68 percent are single and around 23.91 percent are married while those who have live-in partners comprised 19.22 percent and the rest who are widows, widowers, separated, divorced or annulled are at 4.19 percent.

As to educational attainment, the DDB said that 26.99 percent are in high school, 19.61 percent are in college and 17. 4 percent are high school graduates.

“The average monthly family income is around thirteen thousand pesos (Php 13,199.22). Regarding the status of employment, those employed (either workers/employees or businessmen and self-employed) comprised fifty-eight percent (58.40 percent) while unemployed thirty-seven percent (37.05 percent). Three percent (3.49 percent) of the admission constitute students and almost one percent (0.88%) are out-of-school youth while a few (0.18%) were pensioners,’’ the DDB recorded.

The DDB bared that 24.53 percent of the reported cases are residents of the National Capital Region (NCR) while 16.25 percent are from Region III.

“Considering the age at first drug use, forty-one percent (41.32%) belong to ages 15 to 19 years old. Nearly thirty-nine percent (38.73%) admitted to having taken drugs two (2) to five (5) times a week while around twenty-five percent (24.68%) used drugs monthly and twenty-one percent (20.62%) weekly,’’ the DDB continued.