Marijuana
is the most used illegal drug worldwide but addiction to legal
painkillers kills the most people, according to new research.
Scientists found that cannabis was used more than cocaine and heroin in the first ever study of world-wide drug use.
But experts from the University of
Washington found that opioid painkillers such as vicodin, oxycontin and
codeine caused more than half of the estimated 78,000 drug-related
deaths worldwide.
The study, which did not include data on
ecstasy and hallucinogens, also found that men in their 20s are most
likely to abuse drugs, with the highest rates of abuse found in
Australia, the UK, Russia and the U.S.
The research, which was published in The Lancet,
found that the rate of drug-related deaths in countries that take a
hard-line against illicit substance abuse was much higher than in states
where the policy is to wean people off drugs by using methadone clinics
and needle exchange programmes.
Theo Vos, from the university’s
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and senior author of the
study, said that although his team had few concrete numbers and had to
rely on modelling techniques, the results still prove that there are
drug problems in most parts of the world.
Vos added that people tended to abuse
drugs produced close to home: cocaine in North America, amphetamines and
opioids in Asia and Australia.
The lowest rates of drug abuse were in Asia and Africa.
Michael Lysnkey, of the National
Addiction Centre at King’s College London, who co-authored an
accompanying commentary warned that prescription drug abuse in the US
only appears to have become problematic in the last decade and warned
that health officials will need to address the issue.
He said: ‘It’s possible in another 20 years, patterns will again change in ways we can’t predict.’
In a related study, scientists also
found that mental health and drug abuse problems including depression,
schizophrenia and cocaine addiction kill more people worldwide than
AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes or road accidents.
In some developing countries such as
India, attempts to stop AIDS have slowed drug abuse as they focus on
helping people kick their addictions, according to Vikram Patel, of the
Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine.
He recommended an approach to drug use similar to current controls on tobacco.
He said: ‘A decriminalised drug policy could potentially transform the public health approach to drug use.
‘The enormous savings in the criminal justice system could be used to fund addiction treatment programs.”
The results of the study were published
as the the US Government confirmed that it will not sue the states of
Colorado and Washington to stop them from legalising marijuana.
Instead of trying to reverse the
legalisation following a vote in November, the justice department said
that it will try and focus on stopping underage access to the drug and
keeping drug cash from criminals.
As well as the two states which
legalised the drug immediately, 20 other states allow the drug to be
used for medicinal purposes.
Marijuana is still banned by federal law.
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