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VIENNA. – The number of people using drugs is projected to rise 11 percent by 2030 globally, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report yesterday.
Roughly 275 million people globally used drugs in the past year, up from 226 million in 2010. This 22 percent increase was partly attributable to a 10 percent rise in the global population in the past decade.
The Vienna-based agency pulls together data from its wide network of member countries in its annual World Drug Report. The UNODC warned that health-care systems worldwide were facing an increasingly tough task, with estimates suggesting that about 36 million people were suffering from drug use disorders in 2019, up from an earlier estimate of 27 million in 2010.
This represents a rise from 0,6 to 0,7 percent of the global population.
Although the number of people with drug use disorders has increased, the availability of treatment interventions has remained low. Just one in eight of those suffering from a drug use disorder received professional help in 2019.
Increasing drug use “will involve massive investment in health and an expansion of prevention programmes,” the UNODC warned. Opioid use continues to account for the largest burden of disease attributed to drugs, the report said.
The numbers of users worldwide has nearly doubled over the past decade, with North America accounting for the highest. Around 50 000 people died from opioid overdoses in the US in 2019, more than double the 2010 figure.
The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the factors that fuel the vicious cycle of socioeconomic vulnerability and drug use disorders, the report said, adding that poverty, conflict and limited education during the pandemic fuelled drug use.
In 2020, from 119 to 124 million people were pushed into extreme poverty and 1.6 billion learners were affected by school closures. Lockdowns and the negative economic growth caused by pandemic have also led to increased overall global unemployment.
“More people have entered poverty during the pandemic. More people have lost jobs and many students have been left out of school for two years. And we know that poverty and unemployment are risk factors for drug users,” Angela Me, chief of research at UNODC, said.
During the pandemic, many countries logged an increase in the use of cannabis and non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs such as benzodiazepines, the report said.
In a survey of health professionals in 77 countries, a rise in the non-medical use of sedatives was reported in 64 percent of countries and the consumption of cannabis was reported to have increased in 42 percent of countries during the pandemic.
Though drug markets were temporarily disrupted in much of the world during the first phase of the pandemic, they have recovered quickly, the report said.
The pandemic has triggered or accelerated some pre-existing trafficking dynamics such as larger shipment sizes and increased use of land and waterway routes.
The expansion of online drug markets to social media and popular e-commerce platforms suggests that the accessibility of drug markets on the darknet is widening, the report said.
The main drug markets on the darknet are now thought to be worth at least US$315 million in annual sales.
Although this represents a small fraction of overall drug sales, the trend is upward, with a fourfold increase in annual sales in the last decade, the UNODC noted. – DW
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