14 DAY TRIAL // In its annual report, the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has established that drug consumption in the Unites States, the largest market of illicit substances in the world, has decreased, especially amongst teens, but that prescription pill abuse is on a steep rise. According to the paper, drug usage has gone down more than 24 percent in less than 8 years, which brings real hope that the situation will be soon brought under control.
According to estimates belonging to the US government, there are currently 19.9 million Americans, aged 12 and older, who are using one type of drug or another. That's roughly 5.7 percent of the total population of the country today. The sharp decline, the UN says, “is mostly attributed to a decrease in the abuse of cannabis; however there has also been a decrease in the abuse of almost all other drugs,” especially in the 12 to 17 age range.
In the case of those between 18 and 25 years old, drug abuse has also fallen sharply, but people still take abnormally high amounts of pain killers or similar medication to treat various conditions. The general state of health in this population segment is below the global average, seeing how no other country sees its young adults battling such huge problems at such a young age.
“Despite that significant decline, the problem of substance abuse among United States teenagers continues to be widespread, as nearly half of United States students aged 17-18 (47 percent) have tried an illicit drug by the time they have finished secondary school,” the report warns.
And drugs are a very serious problem , US authorities warn. To back up this claim, they say that illegal drug consumption channeled more than $64 billion to drug dealers in 2000 alone. This is a very large sum of money to simply be dismissed, officials opine. Such a deficit also causes the budgets to become unstable, as no taxes are paid for these transfers.