News
Drug Map Reveals Countries’ Worst Addictions
A new interactive drug map, developed using data from the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime, is giving researchers a powerful new tool in charting patterns on addiction in countries around the world.
Drug Map Combines Key Data
The drug map and charts utilize three sets of data to give viewers a concise picture of drug use and addiction:
- The number of people treated for drug abuse
- The most popular drugs based on consumption data
- The number of overdose deaths and hospitalizations due to drug use
This data was combined to create an interactive drug map which reveals some surprising results:
The top country for cannabis use? Iceland.
The country with the most people addicted to meth? El Salvador.
The United States is in a close 2nd to Iceland when it comes to marijuana, but by far the United States is the country most addicted to Opioids, like painkillers and heroine.
Drug Map Shows Benefits of Treatment over Incarceration
The data for the drug map also helps researchers understand the links between incarceration versus treatment and drug addiction and death. The Daily Mail reports,
Addiction treatment for cocaine is more common in Spain as well as pockets of South America including Chile, Argentina and Peru.
The treatment of cocaine dominates South American nations because many are large producers of the drug, but interestingly, Colombia, the reportedly largest source of coke, treats more people for cannabis addiction.
Recovery Brands notes that drug consumption is difficult to measure overall, even when UNDOC data is available, because different countries have different ways of counting and reporting numbers, making comparisons difficult.
The organisation also looked at how treatment statistics correspond with rates of imprisonment and conviction, for example.
A chart shows they found a slight correlation between demand for treatments and the proportion of prisoners serving time for drug crimes.
