U.S. Leads The World In Illegal Drug Use

Map showing how The Juvenal trafficking organization smuggled 20 to 30 metric tons of cocaine per month through Mexico into the United States. 

Despite tough anti-drug laws, a new survey shows the U.S. has the highest level of illegal drug use in the world. The World Health Organization's survey of legal and illegal drug use in 17 countries, including the Netherlands and other countries with less stringent drug laws, shows Americans report the highest level of cocaine and marijuana use.

For example, Americans were four times more likely to report using cocaine in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand (16% vs. 4%), Marijuana use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.

In contrast, in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.

"Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones," researcher Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales, Australia, and colleagues write in PLoS Medicine. Read more >>