UN Report:
According to the findings of a study that was conducted and published by the United Nations on Monday, it was estimated that there would be 284 million people worldwide between the ages of 15 and 24 who would be using illicit substances in the year 2020. This marked a growth of 26 percent in comparison to the preceding decade.
According to the findings of a study that was conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and published under the title World Drug Report 2022, “young people are taking more drugs, with usage levels now being greater than with the generation that came before them in many countries.”
According to the findings of the survey, the number of people who suffer from a variety of illnesses as a direct result of their use of drugs has increased to 38.6 million over the course of the last decade. This number represents a significant increase from the number of people who suffered from these illnesses before the survey was conducted.
The results of the research indicate that by the year 2020, cannabis will have a total user population of 209 million, making it the drug that will be used by the greatest number of individuals around the planet. Over the course of the last ten years, there has been a rise in cannabis use that is equivalent to a 23 percent increase, as shown by the results of the poll.
“The legalization of cannabis in many places of the world appears to have boosted daily consumption and the accompanying health concerns,” states the paper.
In the year 2020, there were around 34 million people who used chemicals that were similar to amphetamines, approximately 20 million people who used ecstasy, and 21 million people who used drugs. This is on top of the almost 61 million individuals who are addicted to the synthetic opiates that are collectively referred to as “opioids.”
Although there were over 11 million people throughout the world who were injecting drugs, the investigation found that “roughly half of this number was living with hepatitis C,” while “1.4 million were living with HIV,” and “1.2 million were living with both.”
According to the findings of the study, the risk of contracting HIV among those who injected drugs or used drugs was 35 times greater than the risk of contracting HIV among people in the general population.
According to the report, there was a discernible increase in the number of people whose lives were cut short due to the use of drugs in the year 2020, and the rate of those who died as a consequence of substance misuse increased by 17.5 percent between the years 2009 and 2019. In addition, there was a discernible rise in the number of people whose lives were cut short due to the use of alcohol between the years 2009 and 2019.
In 2019, there were 494,000 people who died away as a direct result of their use of drugs. The number of fatalities that occurred as a direct result of the use of synthetic drugs reached the highest levels, particularly in the United States of America and Canada.
Between the years 2019 and 2020, an estimated 93,000 lives would be lost in the United States as a direct result of opioids and other medications having effects equivalent to those of opioids.
The analysis indicates that Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Mexico are responsible for manufacturing 95% of the opium that is used on a global scale.
Opium production throughout the world saw a seven percent growth between the years 2020 and 2021, bringing the total to 7,930 tons. This growth may be attributed, in large part, to Afghanistan’s increased output in the relevant sector. According to the research, over the same time period, the total global area dedicated to the cultivation of opium poppy declined by 16 percent, coming in at 246,800 hectares.
According to the research, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no substantial drop in the number of drugs that were used or the number of drugs that were trafficked. On the contrary, there was a rise in the use of synthetic substances, most notably cannabis.
