With 209 Million Cannabis Users Worldwide, UN Drug Report Delves Into Legalization Impacts
Cannabtimes

<![CDATA[As regular cannabis use has increased worldwide, so too has the proportion of people with psychiatric disorders and suicides associated with that regular use, according to the United Nations. The number of hospitalizations is up too. Those were a couple of notable convictions in the five-booklet 2022 World Drug Report released June 27 by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).  Highlighted in the booklet on cannabis and opioids, cannabis remains the most widely used drug worldwide, with more than 4% of the global population aged 15-64—roughly 209 million people—having used cannabis in 2020, a 23% increase from the 170 million people in 2010. The global population increased roughly 13% during that decade. Some 40% of countries worldwide—notably in Africa and South and Central America—report cannabis as the substance related to the greatest number of drug-use disorders, according to the report. As cannabis use and THC potencies have increased, there has been a “notable increase” in related treatment admissions and psychiatric comorbidities, per the report. “Between 2010 and 2019, in the European Union, the rate of people entering treatment with cannabis as their primary drug increased from 27 to 35 per 100,000 of the adult population,” the report states. “In 2019, around 35 percent of all people who entered specialized drug treatment services in the European Union were for treatment of cannabis use. More than half of first-time clients were using the drug daily.” Cannabis was also the most common substance of use reported in emergency rooms during that timeframe in the EU, where it was present in 26% of acute drug toxicity cases, usually alongside other substances. In a case-control study conducted at 11 sites in Brazil, England, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain involving patients presenting first episode psychosis, UNODC reported that cannabis use was associated with a three…

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Source : With 209 Million Cannabis Users Worldwide, UN Drug Report Delves Into Legalization Impacts

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