Illicit and Prescription Drug Use Pandemic Calls for Global Health Policy Actions

• Author: Bonnie Stabile,Otmar Kloiber,Arnauld Nicogossian
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.184
• Date: 01 June 2016

Editorial

Illicit and Prescription Drug Use Pandemic Calls for

Global Health Policy Actions

Arnauld Nicogossian, Bonnie Stabile, and Otmar Kloiber

World use of psychoactive drugs among adolescents and adults is on the rise.

Illicit and prescription drug abuse take lives, fans morbidity from overdose, and

challenges infection control for many pathogens. In 2008, the global trade for

heroin was estimated at 55 billion USD and opium at about 7 to 10 billion USD

(United Nations Off‌ice on Drugs and Crime, 2009). The impacts on health-care

costs and countries’ GDPs are diff‌icult to assess. According to the World Health

Organization, more than 15 million people are addicted to illicit opiates, such

as opium, morphine, and heroin (World Health Organization, 2014). Heroin

is administered by injections, causing local and blood-borne diseases such as

HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. Recent epidemiologic trends suggest that populations

in countries of the European Union are at higher risk of heroin abuse, and in Asia

of opium use (United Nations Off‌ice on Drugs and Crime, 2009).

According to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2014 about 125

Americans died every day from illicit or prescription drug abuses, and this

number is on the rise (Friedersdorf, 2016). Evidence suggests that existing policies

and practices are ineffective in handling this problem. Many of the victims also

suffer from poverty, homelessness, and violence. In 2007 alone, illicit drug use

cost the United States more than 193 billion USD in lost productivity, health-care,

and criminal-justice costs (Off‌ice of National Drug Control Policy, 2014). This

situation attracted the attention of U.S. President Barack Obama and the nation,

as encapsulated in a 2016 statement released by the White House noting that

“nationwide, drug-induced overdose deaths now surpass homicides and car

crash deaths in America” (The White House, 2016). To help address this issue,

President Obama increased funding for treatment by 1.4 billion USD, between

FY2012 and FY2014 (The White House, 2016).

As early as 2011 the World Medical Association and the International

Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations published a white paper

World Medical & Health Policy, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2016

124

1948-4682 #2016 Policy Studies Organization

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