(Newswire.net — June 28, 2016) —More than 29 million people in the world are addicted to drugs, which is 2 million more than last year, according to the new World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs (UNDC).
The report says that about 12 million people were registered as injecting drug users, of which 14 percent live with HIV. The report also says that about five percent of the adult population, or 250 million people aged 15 to 64, used at least one type of drug in 2014.
The report found that the overall impact of drug use in terms of health consequences is still devastating. Mortality caused by drugs remained unchanged throughout the world, and there are about 207,000 reported deaths, which UNODC estimates is an unacceptable high number of deaths that could be prevented with appropriate intervention measures.
The UNODC report said that the connection between heroin and death has been rapidly increasing in the last two years in some countries in North America and Western and Central Europe. The report concludes that heroin continues to be the drug that kills the most people.
The most commonly used drug on a global level is still cannabis. It is estimated that about 183 million people use cannabis. The report shows that with the change of social norms towards cannabis, mainly in the west, the use of these substances increased along with its understanding as a drug.
“In many regions of the world in the last decade, there has been a rising trend of newly registered people who use cannabis as a therapeutic agent,” the UNODC report states.
UNODC indicates a high level of drug use in prison, including the use of opiates and injecting drugs. That’s why prisons are still a high risk environment for infectious diseases.
The report also states that men use cannabis, cocaine or amphetamines, three times more than women who more often than men use opiates and tranquilizers for non-medical purposes.
According to the UNODC, the difference in drug use between women and men can be attributed to the social environment. Despite the fact that more men than women use drugs, the impact of drug use is higher for women than for men.
The report highlights a strong link between poverty and several aspects of the drug problem. The burden of drug problems is much higher in people who are poor in relation to the society in which they live, which is especially pronounced in richer countries.