Pubdate: Thu, 29 Aug 2013
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2013 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/send-a-letter/
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Maria Cheng, The Associated Press
Page: 13A

MARIJUANA IS MOST USED DRUG

But Global Survey Shows Prescription Painkillers Kill the Most

LONDON - Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug used worldwide,
but addictions to popular painkillers like Vicodin, Oxycontin and
codeine kill the most people, according to the first global survey of
illicit drug abuse.

In addition to cannabis and opioid painkillers, scientists analyzed
abuse of cocaine and amphetamines in 2010, largely based on previous
studies. Ecstasy and hallucinogens weren't included because there
wasn't enough data.

The researchers found that for all the drugs studied, men in their 20s
had the highest rates of abuse. The countries with the highest rates
of abuse were Australia, Britain, Russia and the United States. The
study was published online Thursday in the journal Lancet.

But there were few concrete numbers to rely on, and researchers used
modeling techniques to come up with their estimates.

"Even if it is not very solid data, we can say definitely that there
are drug problems in most parts of the world," said Theo Vos, of the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of
Washington, the study's senior author.

The lowest rates of drug abuse were in Asia and Africa. Of the
estimated 78,000 deaths in 2010 because of illegal drug use, more than
half were because of painkiller addictions.

Vos said countries with harsh laws against drugs had worse death rates
for addicts compared with countries that relied on other policies to
wean people off drugs, such as needle exchange programs and methadone
clinics.

Michael Lysnkey of the National Addiction Centre at King's College
London, who co-authored an accompanying commentary, warned that
patterns of drug use could change in unpredictable ways.

"The illicit use of prescribed opiates in the U.S. has only happened
in the last 10 years or so," he said. "It's possible in another 20
years, patterns will again change in ways we can't predict."

In a related study, scientists found that mental health and drug abuse
problems, including depression, schizophrenia and cocaine addiction,
kill more people worldwide than AIDS, tuberculosis, diabetes or road
accidents.
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