Submitted by Livia Edegger on
On June 26th the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released its annual World Drug Report. This report provides a detailed global picture of drug use prevalence, summarising patterns and trends of illicit drug production, trafficking and use around the world as well as detailing national data. This year's report shows that drug use prevalence has remained stable with 246 million people or 5.2% of the world's population aged 15-64 having used an illicit drug in 2013. One out of ten or around 27 million people suffer from drug-related problems such as dependency or drug use disorders. Men are three times more likely to use marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines than women whereas women are more likely to misuse prescription drugs. The most widely used illicit drug continues to be marijuana with an estimated 181.8 million users worldwide and its use continues to be high in West and Central Africa, Western and Central Europe, North America and Oceania. The use of cocaine has been on decline (17 million) whereas global use of opioids has remained fairly stable (32.4 million).
Browse the World Drug Report to learn more about global trends of illicit drug production, trafficking and consumption.