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DrugScreening.org


 
Drug Use Becoming More Common Worldwide
July 1, 2008

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Research Summary

Use of various illicit drugs has become more common worldwide over the years, and the United States has some of the world's highest rates of lifetime alcohol and tobacco use, according to an international survey conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO researchers led by Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales in Australia conducted surveys on lifetime use of alcohol, tobacco, cocaine and marijuana in 17 nations in the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania.

Researchers found that men, younger adults, and individuals with higher incomes were more likely to use drugs, and that most survey respondents in the Americas, Europe, Japan and New Zealand had used alcohol sometime during their life. Lifetime tobacco use was highest in the U.S. (74 percent), followed by Lebanon, Mexico, the Ukraine, and the Netherlands.

The survey results were published July 1, 2008 in the journal PLoS Medicine.
This article summarizes an external report or press release on research published in a scientific journal. When available, links to the sources are provided above.

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by Jerry Epstein on 02 Jul 08 12:29 PM EDT
Drug "use" is interesting but misses the links to harm, to drug abuse. SAMHSA data shows current abuse of drugs among those who have tried them and cocaine abuse at 5 percent is below alcohol abuse at about 9 percent. (dpft.org) Also "Among adults aged 18 or older in 2001, college graduates had the lowest rate of current use (4.3 percent). The rate was 7.6 percent among those who had not completed high school. This is despite the fact that adults who had completed 4 years of college were more likely to have tried illicit drugs in their lifetime when compared with adults who had not completed high school (47.2 vs. 32.0 percent)." We need to focus on harm.

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