Chapter 13 Illicit drug use - WHO

SummaryEstimating mortality directly attributable to Illicit drug use such as over-dose death the most tangible adverse heath effect of Illicit drug use is difficult because of variations in the quality and quantity of mortalitydata. As a result, it is necessary to make indirect estimates, involving esti-mates of the prevalence of Illicit drug use. However, it is difficult to makeeven indirect estimates because the use of these drugs is illegal, stigma-tized and hidden. Nonetheless, efforts must be made to estimate the contribution that Illicit drug use makes to the global burden of disease,because it is a pattern of behaviour that has a substantial adverse effecton the health of those who engage in it. In cohort studies of treated drugusers the problematic use of Illicit drugs has been associated with anincreased overall rate of mortality, and with an elevated rate of a numberof individual causes of death, four of which were estimated here: AIDS,overdose, suicide and of the variable of interest are difficult because of deficien-cies in the data collected by countries on Illicit drug use, and by dis-agreements over what constitutes problematic Illicit drug use.

The global burden of death and disability attributable to illicit drugs was first estimated by Donoghoe (1996), as part of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) project (Murray and Lopez 1996). Donoghoe esti-mated that illicit drug use was responsible for 100000 deaths globally in 1990, the majority of which (62%) occurred in developing countries.

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  Global, Burden, Global burden

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