Is the field's historical record fading away?
Asking
“How is it that an academic field can come so far and then erase itself?”, a
dwindling group of substance abuse research librarians is seeking to call the
addiction field into action before their organizations tumble into extinction.
A
strongly worded editorial published online June 12 in the journal Addiction
makes a compelling case for addiction field libraries’ role in furthering
knowledge among treatment professionals and researchers, but the editorial’s
appearance also comes with some disappointing irony. Since the first drafting of
the article text more than four years ago, more libraries have shut operations
as the article underwent revisions and its authors experienced other delays.
“Every
three or four months, another librarian leaves our organization because another
library closes,” says Andrea Mitchell, executive director of Substance Abuse
Librarians and Information Specialists (SALIS), an organization with a current
membership that is down about 60 from a level of 143 just a decade ago.
While
addiction professionals can be fiercely attached to the historical context of
their profession, it remains difficult to rally the field around the health of
research libraries and databases at a time when many individuals assume that
any document they need can be accessed for free somewhere online. Not so, say
members of SALIS (http://salis.org), who represent libraries housed at institutions such as
research centers, government agencies and alcohol industry operations.
SALIS
members do have some well-known allies in their effort, such as William White,
the nation’s most prominent chronicler of the field’s history. White, senior
research consultant with Chestnut Health Systems, sent a comment to Addiction
Professional in regard to SALIS’s effort; it read in part:
“The
worst of our professional history will repeat itself if the lessons of our
history are lost. The best of our clinical practice will erode if we lose the
repositories of scientific and experiential knowledge upon which they are
based. We risk becoming a profession unguided by memory, knowledge and wisdom.”
Federal
moves
Mitchell
says pivotal developments occurred in 2003 and 2006 when the National Institute
on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug
Abuse (NIDA), respectively, discontinued their science library collection
operations. At the time of NIAAA’s move, officials there suggested that
maintaining the library generally represented an unnecessary cost because of
the existence of online databases.
But
as Mitchell and her co-authors pointed out in the Addiction article,
NIAAA’s former ETOH database (ETOH is the chemical name for alcohol) indexed 55
addiction-specific journals, which they said is significantly more than what
can be found on PubMed.
Along
with the moves by the national research institutes, the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in recent years closed its
prevention library and cut funding for Regional Alcohol and Drug Awareness
Resource centers that disseminated alcohol and other drug agency publications.
The
editorial states, “More than 25 libraries or databases have closed in the past
decade. Not only have we lost the information base, but the expertise of the
librarians.”
This
advocacy effort on the part of SALIS even was delayed in itself because of the
struggles of some of the libraries. Mitchell herself was laid off from her job
in 2008 shortly after commencing work on the journal editorial.
Move
to digitize
SALIS’s
present effort is focused on stepping up the pace of digitization of print
material in the addiction field. “We did a survey in 2009 and found that only a
few libraries were digitizing—fewer than five people had digitized more than
500 items,” Mitchell says.
SALIS
is now working with the nonprofit digital library Internet Archive in an
attempt to digitize 500 books in the field. It is seeking librarians who are
interested in getting 10 books per library digitized at no charge, says
Mitchell.
But
she still believes government agencies ultimately need to play a key role in
preserving the alcohol and drug field’s historical context. “We have to have
government giving some money,” she says.
What
would be the result of a field bereft of library resources? “How do you measure
the effect on a scholar going out looking for stuff?” Mitchell asks.
Already
she sees an information gap emerging. “It is even difficult trying to find
NIAAA memoranda,” she says, adding, “There’s not a lot of ‘new’ happening in
alcohol right now.”
A
news release issued by SALIS in conjunction with the editorial’s publication
states, “If action is not taken, important documents could be lost forever,
especially the grey literature, i.e. unpublished reports and working papers,
government documents, and programmatic materials, which tend to disappear when
libraries are closed.”
SBIRT will be
part of collaborative care initiative
An intervention to curb risky substance
use will be a service option under an innovative federally funded initiative to
implement a collaborative care model for patients who have clinical depression
along with diabetes and/or heart disease.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is
awarding nearly $18 million to a host of organizations led by the Institute for
Clinical Systems Improvement (ICSI), a quality improvement organization
sponsored by nonprofit health plans in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Several other
healthcare institutions outside of those states will be participating in this
project as well.
While all participating sites will support development of a common
model and training program to manage depression plus diabetes and/or
cardiovascular disease collaboratively, many of the sites also will incorporate
the Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) model to
address potentially harmful substance use in this patient population.
According to a statement from ICSI, focusing on the substance use
issue is of particular concern in Minnesota, which it says ranks sixth in the
nation in the prevalence of binge drinking.
“We will spread an innovative model that provides better health,
better care and lower costs—truly a Triple Aim Bulls-eye,” said Sanne Magnan,
MD, PhD, president and CEO of ICSI.
Components of the care management model under this initiative
include use of a computerized registry to monitor patient progress; use of a
care manager to provide the individual patient with education and illness
self-management support; and relapse and exacerbation prevention.
Rate
of Bipolar Symptoms Among Teens Approaches That of Adults
The rate of bipolar symptoms among U.S. teens is nearly as
high as the rate found among adults, according to NIMH-funded research
published online ahead of print on May 7, 2012, in the Archives of General
Psychiatry.
Nationally representative data indicate that about 3.9
percent of adults meet criteria for bipolar disorder in their lifetime, and 2.6
percent meet criteria in a given year.1 However, limited data exist on the
rates of bipolar disorder among adolescents, despite strong evidence indicating
that bipolar disorder tends to emerge in adolescence or early adulthood.
Kathleen Merikangas, Ph.D., of NIMH, and colleagues analyzed
data from the NIMH-funded National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement
(NCS-A), a nationally representative, face-to-face survey of more than 10,000
teens ages 13 to 18. Using criteria established by the American Psychiatric
Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), the researchers
assessed teens for the hallmark symptoms of bipolar disorder—mania and
depression. They also examined the rates of teens who showed evidence of mania
alone.
The researchers found that 2.5 percent of youth met criteria
for bipolar disorder in their lifetime, and 2.2 percent met criteria within a
given year. About 1.7 percent reported having mania alone within their
lifetime, and 1.3 percent reporting having mania alone within a given year.
Rates increased with age—about 2 percent of younger teens reported bipolar
disorder symptoms, whereas 3.1 percent of older teens did.
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
National Institutes of Health
Teens
Who Listen to High-Volume Music at Greater Risk of Substance Abuse
Teens and young adults who listen to high-volume digital
music with ear buds, or who visit music venues such as clubs or concerts, are
at greater risk of substance abuse than their peers who don’t engage in
so-called risky music-listening behaviors, according to a new study.
Young people who listen to loud music with ear buds are
almost twice as likely to smoke marijuana as those who do not listen to music
on MP3 players, the Los Angeles Times reports. Teens and young adults who
attend loud concerts and dance clubs are almost six times as likely as those
who don’t frequent these venues to have had five or more alcoholic drinks in a
row at some point in the previous month, the study found. They are also twice
as likely to have sex without using a condom every time.
Researchers in the Netherlands surveyed 944 low-income
students at two vocational schools, who ranged in age from 15 to 25. “This
study highlights the need to regard high-volume music listening as a risk
factor for risk-taking behavior,” they wrote in the journal Pediatrics. They
suggested the findings could lead to practical interventions, such as handing
out condoms and earplugs at concerts, or printing messages about alcohol abuse
on concert ticket stubs.
Many Drivers Convicted of DUI Have Lifelong Struggle
With Heavy Drinking
Almost
half of adults with a drunk driving conviction said they had been struggling
with heavy drinking for a long time, or had resumed heavy drinking after trying
to quit or reduce their alcohol use, a new study finds. The study of 696 adults
with a drunk driving conviction found 19 percent reported a lifetime of heavy
drinking, while 25 percent had resumed heavy drinking again after at least one
period of abstinence or moderate drinking, Reuters reports. The researchers
write in the journal Addiction that there could be long-lasting benefits from
using heavy drinkers’ convictions to get them into treatment.
The
researchers found 13 percent had varying drinking patterns throughout their
lives, while 14 percent had successfully cut down from heavy drinking to more
moderate drinking. In addition, 21 percent had stopped drinking after some
period of heavy drinking. Between one-fifth and one-third of chronically heavy
drinkers met the definition for alcohol or drug dependence, or for mental
health disorders such as depression.
Women were
considered heavy or “risky” drinkers if they regularly had more than seven
drinks a week, or four or more drinks a day. Men were considered risky drinkers
if they had more than 14 drinks a week, or five or more drinks a day. Those who
began risky drinking at age 15 or later quit at double the rate of those who
began before age 15. While women’s and men’s drinking patterns were similar,
women tended to begin risky drinking at a later age, and more often were able
to quit.
One-Third
of U.S. Treatment Applicants Report Buprenorphine/Naloxone Sold on
Street; One-Fifth Report the Drug Is Used to Get High
“Diversion and abuse of buprenorphine/naloxone have steadily
increased since 2005 through 2009,” according to data from a national
post-marketing surveillance program* funded by the manufacturer. One of the
indicators of diversion and abuse utilized by the surveillance program is a
survey of nearly 19,000 applicants to 86 substance abuse treatment programs in
30 states. Both the percentage of applicants who reported knowing that
buprenorphine/naloxone, which has been approved for opioid therapy since 2002,
was sold on the street and those that reported knowing that the drug was used
to get high increased from 2005 to 2009, reaching 33% and 21%, respectively.
In comparison, the percentage who reported that methadone,
which has been used since the 1950s for opioid therapy, was sold on the street
or used to get high has remained relatively stable over the past three years.
The authors note that “the increases in diversion and abuse measures indicate
the need to take active attempts to curb diversion and abuse as well as
continuous monitoring and surveillance of all buprenorphine products”.
*Conducted for Reckitt
Benckiser Pharmaceuticals by an independent contractor, the Surveillance of
Diversion and Abuse of Therapeutic Agents (SODATA) utilizes several national
indicators of diversion and abuse combined with a survey of applicants to
substance abuse treatment programs and a survey of CSAT-certified physicians.
**Surveys were conducted at
86 treatment programs (both providing and not providing pharmacotherapy) from
30 states providing a total of 18,956 completed surveys from 2005 to 2009.
While the treatment applicant survey was not a probability sample, the
demographic characteristics of the applicant sample were similar to that of the
national census of publicly-funded treatment admissions. The applicant survey
does not estimate either the incidence or the prevalence of diversion/abuse,
but it is an indication of changes in perception of diversion/abuse among a
population likely to be knowledgeable about illegal markets through their own
experiences, that of others, and direct observations.
Addiction
Medicine: Closing the Gap between Science and Practice
CASA
Columbia’s new five year national study reveals that addiction treatment is
largely disconnected from mainstream medical practice. While a wide range
of evidence-based screening, intervention, treatment and disease management
tools and practices exist, they rarely are employed. The report exposes
the fact that most medical professionals who should be providing treatment are
not sufficiently trained to diagnose or treat addiction, and most of those
providing addiction treatment are not medical professionals and are not
equipped with the knowledge, skills or credentials necessary to provide the
full range of evidence-based services, including pharmaceutical and
psychosocial therapies and other medical care. This landmark report examines the science
of addiction--a complex disease that involves changes in the structure and
function of the brain--and the profound gap between what we know about the
disease and how to prevent and treat it versus current health and medical
practice. The read more and download associated files, please
click here
Commentary: Taking a Closer Look at College Marijuana
Use
Parents,
college students, college officials and other policy makers: take heed. Recent
findings from the College Life Study (CLS) may be the first to indicate that
students who smoke marijuana during college may be risking their longer-term
health, particularly if they increase their marijuana use during the college
years or continue a heavy use pattern.
Amelia
Arria, PhD, Principal Investigator of the CLS and co-author of the study,
stressed the importance of finding out more. “These findings need to be
examined in other college (and non-college) samples of young people,” she said.
“Rather than assuming that marijuana use during college is simply a ‘rite of
passage,’ we need to consider possible impacts on long-term physical and mental
health and on health care utilization,” she explained.
Based on
how often they used marijuana over six years, the researchers first divided the
college students in this sample into two categories: users and non- or rarely-using
students. Most (71.5%) did not use marijuana (or used only rarely). The 29.5%
who did use were then sub-divided into five groups based on the onset,
frequency, and progression of their marijuana use.
Analysis
indicated that all marijuana using students—except those who rarely used—were
at risk for several adverse health outcomes, including injury, illness,and
emotional problems bad enough to interfere with day-to-day tasks; poorer
overall health (self-reported); more symptoms of psychiatric problems; lower
quality of life (health-related); and, three years after college, increased
service use for physical and mental health problems. Non-users fared
significantly better than most of the using groups. Students who were chronic
users or whose use increased beginning in year three of college had the worst
health outcomes.
A major
strength of the study is that it takes into account health at baseline and a
number of other variables including alcohol and tobacco use over time. No data
were available to quantify the costs of these problems, but the findings should
be of interest to policymakers and others who are concerned about the rising
costs of health care services.
Stressing
again that the possible link between marijuana use and adverse health outcomes
needs more study, Arria went on to say that even modest differences in health
outcomes should be a wake-up call for the students themselves as well as their
parents. “For this (growing) subset of college-bound adolescents who use
marijuana, college may be an opportune time and place to intervene before
problems escalate,” she said. “Colleges should consider using assessment tools
to spot trouble and do something about it—through college health centers and
academic assistance programs,” she added.
The writer is Principal
Investigator of the College Life Study and Director of the Center on Young
Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland School of Public Health,
Department of Family Science. She is also Scientific Director of the Parents
Translational Research Center at the Treatment Research Institute.
Prescription Painkiller Abuse Jumped 75 Percent From
2002 to 2010, Study Finds
A new
study finds prescription painkiller abuse jumped 75 percent between 2002 and
2010. Men and adults ages 26 to 49 were most likely to abuse prescription
painkillers.
Bloomberg News reports the study is the first to examine
who is likely to abuse prescription painkillers, and how often it occurs. The
study found more than 15,000 people overdosed on painkillers and died in
2009—more than double the number in 2002.
“Chronic
nonmedical use is increasing and these drugs have very dangerous risks,” study
author Christopher Jones of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
Injury Center told Bloomberg News. “As sales of these drugs have gone up so has
the unintended adverse events.” These events include overdoses, deaths,
emergency room visits and addiction, he said.
The study,
published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is based on data from the
National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which provides national estimates on
substance abuse. The researchers found 3.8 per 1,000 people said they used
prescription painkillers for nonmedical purposes for 200 days or more in
2009-2010, compared with 2.2 per 1,000 in 2002-2003. That represents a 75
percent increase. The study took population growth into account, the authors
noted.
Men who
used prescription painkillers for nonmedical purposes for 200 or more days
annually rose 105 percent from 2002 to 2010. Among adults ages 26 to 34, the
rate jumped 81 percent, the article notes. Among teens 12 to 17, nonmedical use
of painkillers dropped 26 percent during those years. Overall, almost one
million people reported using pain relievers nonmedically for 200 days or more
in 2009-2010, while 4.6 million people used them for 30 days or more. The
researchers conclude that “these findings underscore the need for concerted
public health and public safety action to prevent nonmedical use of these
drugs.”
Addiction
epidemic: Americans’ problems with pain meds go back a century
More
than 100 years ago, Dr. John Witherspoon, who became president of the American
Medical Association, urged the medical community to avoid widespread narcotics
use.
It
“stalks abroad throughout the civilized world,” he wrote in a 1900 issue of the
Medical Association journal. “(It is) wrecking lives and happy homes, filling
our jails and lunatic asylums.” Now, 112 years later, prescription pills have
become a staple of modern medical treatment, promising pain relief to millions
of patients, but as rates of prescription drug abuse and pills-related deaths
spike, patients, doctors and families are left to consider Witherspoon’s
warning.
“For
most physicians, it’s always been about the patients,” Dr. Lynn Webster,
president-elect of the American Association of Pain Medicine, said.
“Our
belief was if you were using it for the right purpose, it would help deal with
pain and most people would not be harmed,” Webster said. “But, frankly, I don’t
believe we appreciated … how harmful (the pills) could be to so many people.”
Around
the turn of the 20th century, when Witherspoon was writing, doctors were
dealing with another potential threat in the medical community.
Researchers
had recently released a synthetic form of heroin known as diacetylmorphine to
help address pain and cure morphine addiction. Within several years,
pharmaceutical companies had released several versions and forms of the drug,
including tablets, lozenges and liquids. But after several years, doctors found
the drug, marketed as “Heroine,” to be just as addictive and damaging as
morphine itself.
For
this reason, doctors and medical professionals shied away over the following
decades from opiate-based pain killers. Doctors, who feared the drugs’
addictive qualities, largely refused to prescribe the pills for pain treatment.
And patients, who feared both the effects and the stigma of addiction, didn’t
ask.
“People
felt guilty if they used opioids for pain,” said Dr. Seddon Savage, director of
the Center on Addiction, Recovery & Education at Dartmouth College. “People
felt they were addicts if they had to use.”
Toward
the beginning of the 1960s, however, that attitude began to change.
Around that time, pain management began to emerge as an area of medical
practice, and doctors and medical providers started to focus on hospice and
palliative care for cancer patients and those in severe and chronic pain. “That
was really when it started,” Savage said.
Managing
pain
Over
the decades to follow, medical research focused much more on pain treatment.
Several national organizations formed, pushing pain treatment strategies, and
doctors and hospitals started to prescribe opiate-based medications to treat
acute and chronic pain.
“Until
then, people feared the indignity of dying of addiction would be worse than
having their pain controlled,” said Webster, of the pain medicine
association. “That obviously evolved,” he said. “We began to believe that
people who suffer from a great deal of pain, should not, and we came up with
options to treat them.”
Doctors
and medical professionals initially welcomed the drugs, applauding them for
increasing access to effective pain treatment for patients. And rates of
prescription drug use increased slightly over that time. By the early
1970s, national surveys reported 300,000 new users of pain killers, and by
1986, that number reached 500,000, according to a survey by the national
Substance abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. “Those numbers
stayed pretty stable over time,” said Dr. Ruben Baler, a health scientist with
the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
But,
in the mid-1990s, the usage rates began to rise dramatically. Starting
around 1992, the number of new users spiked from about 500,000 to 2.5 million
in 1998, according to the national survey. Several factors likely contributed
to the stark increase in usage rates, and it’s hard to pinpoint a single cause,
Baler said, “You can’t draw a conclusion there was any single cause and
effect,” he said.
But
this timeline coincided with the introduction of several new prescription drugs
to the market, other doctors noted. In the early 1990s, pharmaceutical
companies released several time-released morphine pills, and in 1996, Purdue
Pharma released OxyContin, the market version of oxycodone, another
prescription strength pain killer.
Over
the next eight years, the pharmaceutical industry exploded. Oxycodone sales
jumped six-fold between 1997-2005, according to media reports, and, by 2008,
the United States accounted for nearly half of the world’s pharmaceutical
market, with $289 billion in annual sales, according to New York University’s
Stern School of Business. The prescription pills allowed patients to take just
one or two doses a day to relieve their pain, as opposed to prior treatments
which were required more frequently, according to Savage, of the Dartmouth
addiction center. But with qualities similar to heroin, cocaine or other
recreational drugs, the pills also allowed non-medical users an easy high
without dealing on the streets.
By
contrast, these pills were now available in home medicine cabinets.
“It’s
completely different,” said Dr. James Martin, medical director of St. Joseph
Hospital’s emergency and EMS departments in Nashua. “People are able to treat
their pain at home now, and that means the pills are available at home,” he
said. “There are all kinds of challenges that come from that.”
Dangerous
prescriptions
The
challenges have only grown over recent years. According to a 2012 study by
Quest Diagnostics, prescription drug abuse causes more than 20,000 deaths each
year, including 14,800 from opiate-related medications. In addition, hospitals
reported more than 475,000 pill-related emergency room visits in 2009, more
than twice the number reported five years earlier, according to the study. Such
incidents include both patients and non-medical users alike, analysts said.
Like users looking to get high, patients often can often become addicted and
overdose on the pills, seeking to dull their pain, Webster said.
“The
disease of addiction is about 50 percent due to our genetic makeup,” he said.
“Because you have pain doesn’t protect you from that. … There’s always going to
be a subset of the pain population who’s at risk for harm.” To battle this
epidemic, health professionals, public safety officers and lawmakers across the
country are looking to limit access to pills.
Police
departments are holding drug take-back days, in which they collect extra pills
from the public before they reach the streets. And, at the state level,
lawmakers are implementing prescription monitoring programs, in which they
monitor distribution of pills between clinics. Looking forward, medical
researchers are working toward non-addictive medications that could replace
opioids.
But,
in the short term, the answer requires a greater focus on public awareness,
medical analysts said. Doctors, public safety officers, teachers and other
members of the public need to work more to educate the public about the
potential risks and consequences of prescription drug abuse. “We need a lot
more education about pain, we need a lot more education about opioids and we
need a lot more education about disease of addictions,” Webster said. “There’s
a perception out there that because these are prescription, they’re less
dangerous. That’s not the case. We’re seeing that every day.”
Drug Abuse Kills 200,000 People Each Year: UN Report
Drug abuse
kills about 200,000 people worldwide each year, according to a new United
Nations (UN) report. Global treatment for drug abuse would cost $250 billion
per year if everyone who needed help received proper care, according to the UN.
Fewer than one in five people who need treatment actually receive it, according
to the Associated Press. Crimes committed by people who need money to finance
their drug habit, as well as loss of productivity, add tremendous costs for
many countries, the report notes.
The UN
estimates that about 230 million people, or 5 percent of the world’s
population, used illegal drugs at least once in 2010. In the United States,
female drug use was two-thirds the male rate, while in India and Indonesia,
females constituted only one-tenth of those using illegal drugs.
The 2012
World Drug Report cited an increase in synthetic drug production worldwide,
“including significant increases in the production and consumptions of
psychoactive substances that are not under international control.” Overall, use
of illegal drugs remained stable during the past five years, at between 3.4 and
6.6 percent of the world’s adult population. Marijuana was the most widely used
drug.
Coca bush
cultivation has decreased 33 percent over the past 12 years. Seizures of
methamphetamine more than doubled in 2010 compared with 2008. In Europe,
seizures of Ecstasy pills more than doubled.
“Heroin,
cocaine and other drugs continue to kill around 200,000 people a year, shattering
families and bringing misery to thousands of other people, insecurity and the
spread of HIV,” the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime,
Yury Fedotov, said in a news release. He added that as developing
countries emulate industrialized nations’ lifestyles, it is likely that drug
consumption will increase.
Congress agrees
to add synthetic drugs to Controlled Substances Act
“K2”
and “Spice” would permanently appear on Schedule I
The Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) commended House and Senate negotiators for
agreeing on legislation to control 26 synthetic drugs under the Controlled
Substances Act. These drugs include those commonly found in products marketed
as "K2" and "Spice." The addition of these chemicals to
Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act will be included as part of S.
3187, the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act. Schedule I
substances are those with a high potential for abuse; have no medical use in
treatment in the United States; and lack an accepted safety for use of the
drug.
In addition to
scheduling the 26 drugs, the new law would double the length of time a
substance may be temporarily placed in Schedule I (from 18 to 36 months). In addition
to explicitly naming 26 substances, the legislation creates a new definition
for "cannabamimetic agents," creating criteria by which similar
chemical compounds are controlled.
In recent years,
a growing number of dangerous products have been introduced into the U.S.
marketplace. Products labeled as "herbal incense" have become
especially popular, especially among teens and young adults. These products
consist of plant material laced with synthetic cannabinoids which, when smoked,
mimic the delirious effects of THC, the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, more than 100 such
substances have been synthesized and identified to date. DEA has used its
emergency scheduling authority to place in Schedule I several of these harmful
chemicals.
Newly developed
drugs, particularly from the "2C family" (dimethoxyphenethylamines),
are generally referred to as synthetic psychedelic/hallucinogens. 2C-E caused
the recent death of a 19 year-old in Minnesota.
The substances
added to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act also include 9 different
2C chemicals, and 15 different synthetic cannabanoids.
The American
Association of Poison Control Centers reported that they received 6,959 calls
related to synthetic marijuana in 2011, up from 2,906 in 2010.
Illegal
Drug Use Around the World — 5 Things You Need to Know
Global
illegal drug use is expected to rise by 25% over the next few decades as rapid
urbanization, industrialization, and population growth in developing countries
fuel the demand for illegal substances, the UN’s anti-drug agency said in its
new annual report this week. The report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNDOC), which underlines the fight against drug abuse with data on the
consumption and production of illegal substances, also projects that developing
countries will shoulder the burden of the global drug problem in the coming
decades. Here are the highlights of the UN findings:
1. Roughly 230 million people have used an illegal drug at least once in 2010.
In 2010,
5% of the world adult population aged 15-64 used illegal drugs at least once.
Problem drug users, who mainly depend on cocaine and heroin, make up an
estimated 0.6% of the world adult population, amounting to roughly 27 million.
Every year, approximately 200,000 people worldwide die from drug abuse.
2.
The global number of illegal drug users will go up by 25% by 2050.
If the
annual prevalence of illegal drug use stays stable at 5% of the adult
population over the next few decades, demographic trends indicate that the
total number of illicit drug users will increase by a quarter by 2050, which is
in proportion to world population growth. Although the current rate of 5% might
appear like a small proportion of the world’s adult population, if this rate
continues, there may be some extra 65 million illegal drug users by 2050
compared to 2009-2010.
3.
The increase in illicit drug use will be most pronounced in developing
countries.
Drug use
is linked to urbanization. With the urban population of developing countries
expected to double between 2011 and 2050, they will see a marked increase in
the demand for drugs. In other words, the burden of the global drug problem
will shift to countries that are relatively ill-equipped to deal with it,
explains Yury Fedotov, the UN anti-drugs chief. In addition, developing
countries’ higher projected population growth and younger populations, the main
consumers of drugs, will raise the demand for illicit drugs in those nations.
4.
Two of the world’s most popular illegal drugs are cannabis (marijuana) and
amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS).
There are
an estimated 119-224 million marijuana users globally, making it the most
popular illegal substance in the world. Amphetamine-type stimulants, such
as methamphetamine (but excluding ecstasy), come in second with around
14-52.5 million users worldwide. As of now there are no signs that marijuana
will lose its status as the illegal drug of choice, says the report.
5.
More women will use illicit drugs.
While men
who take illegal drugs still greatly outnumber women, the gender gap,
especially in developing countries, will narrow as conservative, sociocultural
barriers break down and as gender equality improves.
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