Legal drugs pose greatest health threat -WHO

(BRASILIA, Brazil-March 18, 2004)

The health threat from legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco is much greater than that from illegal narcotics, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

The first report of its kind by the global body found that dependence on alcohol and cigarettes has a much greater cost for societies than illegal drugs like cocaine and crack.

The Neuroscience of Psychoactive Substance Use and Dependence report said that drug addiction is a growing problem, especially in poor countries which have rising rates of alcohol consumption and smoking.

There are about 200 million illegal drugs users worldwide, or 3.4 percent of the world population, it said. Illegal drugs contributed 0.8 percent to global ill health in 2000, while alcohol accounted for 4.1 percent and cigarettes 4 percent.

The percentages are based on a measurement used by WHO which gauges the burden that premature deaths and years lived with disability impose on society.

The "main global health burden is due to licit rather than illicit substances," the report said.

Men in rich countries are especially vulnerable to suffer from alcohol- and cigarette-related bad health.

"Health and social problems associated with use and dependence on tobacco, alcohol and illicit substances require greater attention by the public health community," WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-Wook said in a statement.

The report also found that it may not be possible to fully cure drug dependence because of long-term changes to the way the brain works.

Health experts need to consider a range of factors in treating drug dependence because it is a disorder caused by genetic disposition, as well as psychological and cultural factors, it said.

"Like major psychiatric disorders, substance dependence may not be curable but improved effectiveness of available treatment has contributed significantly to recovery," said Dr. Catherine Le Gales-Camus, assistant-director general of noncommunicable diseases and mental health at WHO.

The global launch of the report took place in Brazil, a country with spiraling drug-related violence, which has in the past led to rough treatment of drug users.

Any person can become a drug addict and that dependence is a disorder, making it crucial to eradicate the stigma suffered by drug users that can make treatment more difficult, the report said.