In 1979 the same decade that brought in Nixon's war on drugs, over 25,000 people said they used drugs in the past 30 days. These numbers halved in the early 1990s and recently those numbers are coming back. "The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) conducts the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), a major source of information on substance use, abuse, and dependence among Americans 12 years and older. Survey respondents report whether they have used specific substances ever in their lives (lifetime), over the past year, and over the past month (also referred to as "current use"). Most analyses focus on past-month use....
Illicit drug use in the United States has been increasing. In 2013, an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older—9.4 percent of the population—had used an illicit drug in the past month. This number is up from 8.3 percent in 2002."
Some might think of the opioid epidemic when hearing these numbers but heroin only accounts for 0.6 of illegal drug use.
Also there is a catch here that I think many would like to hear.. 19.6 percent of those illegal drug users are actually cannabis users.
Take the cannabis users out of the equation and you have less than 7% of Americans on drugs(still high!)
6.5% of Americans are on prescription drugs.
1.5% on cocaine.
1.3% on hallucinogens
(Recently Denver, Colorado legalized shrooms)
And like I said above.. 0.6 on heroin.
These numbers are from 2014 so the numbers may have changed.
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends