Cannabis use climbs

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Tags: discovery, health, research, winter-2012

UQ research shows the use of cannabis is rising

A major Australian drug study published earlier this year in The Lancet has found that cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug globally, while opioid use is a major cause of death.

Professor Wayne Hall, of UQ’s Centre for Clinical Research, and Professor Louisa Degenhardt from the Burnet Institute, Melbourne, conducted the research which focused on the global prevalence and health burden of illicit drug use.

“Cannabis was far and away the most widely used illicit drug globally, but heroin and other opiates caused the most harm, followed by amphetamine-type stimulants and cocaine,” Professor Hall said.

The study found that of an estimated 155–250 million people who used an illicit drug worldwide in 2008, about 129–191 million were cannabis users; 16–38 million problem users of opioids, amphetamines, or cocaine; and 11–21 million people injected drugs.

It examined what iillicit drugs were most commonly used, those causing the most harm, the types of harm, and research priorities for better understanding illicit drug use and drug-related harm globally.

Researchers concluded that intelligent policy responses were urgently needed to address drug problems globally – particularly in high-income countries where rates of illicit drug use were substantial, and in low and middle-income countries close to illicit drug production areas.

However, before this could be achieved, better data was needed on the global prevalence of different types of illicit drug use and drug-related harm.

“We found that information was of varied quality and largely missing for some parts of the world, especially developing countries,” Professor Hall said.

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