Drug Use Disorders
Global death rates from drug use disorders, country rankings, and trends from 1990 to 2023.
| # | Country | Rate | Region |
|---|
This page presents age-standardized death rates from drug use disorders across 204 countries and territories, drawing on data from the IHME Global Burden of Disease Study 2024. Drug Use Disorders mortality patterns vary considerably by geography, income level, and access to healthcare services. Understanding the epidemiology and population-level burden of drug use disorders is critical for global public health policy, disease prevention strategies, and healthcare resource allocation.
The trend chart above shows how the global drug use disorders rate has evolved since 1990, reflecting changes in risk factor prevalence, diagnostic capacity, treatment availability, and demographic transitions. Country rankings provide a comparative view of the current burden, highlighting disparities between high-income and low-income nations in drug use disorders outcomes.
Drug use disorders encompass the harmful use of and dependence on psychoactive substances including amphetamines, cocaine, cannabis, and other non-opioid drugs (opioid-specific mortality is tracked separately). Death results from acute toxicity (stimulant-induced cardiac arrhythmia, hyperthermia, serotonin syndrome, seizures), chronic organ damage (cocaine-related cardiomyopathy, methamphetamine-induced stroke, hepatitis C from injection drug use), and associated risks including violence, suicide, and infectious disease transmission. Globally, an estimated 296 million people aged 15-64 used drugs in the past year, with approximately 39.5 million experiencing drug use disorders. Methamphetamine use has surged across East and Southeast Asia, while cocaine production has reached record levels, expanding use beyond traditional markets in North America and Europe into West Africa, Oceania, and South America's Southern Cone. The social determinants mirror those of other substance use disorders: poverty, trauma, mental illness, social exclusion, and incarceration create pathways into harmful drug use, while criminalisation often compounds harm by driving users away from health services.
Evidence-based drug policy prioritises health approaches over punitive ones. Portugal's 2001 decriminalisation of personal drug possession — coupled with expanded treatment — demonstrated reductions in drug-related HIV, overdose deaths, and incarceration without increasing overall drug use. Harm reduction services including needle and syringe programmes, drug checking services, and supervised consumption sites reduce morbidity and mortality. Treatment options vary by substance: contingency management and cognitive behavioural therapy show efficacy for stimulant use disorders, while no pharmacotherapy equivalent to methadone or buprenorphine yet exists for cocaine or methamphetamine dependence.