What is the health burden attributable to psychoactive drugs?
Psychoactive drugs impose a substantial health burden on society. Damage to human life is often described in terms of loss of “disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs). This measure takes into account the number of years lost due to premature deaths as well as the years spent living with disability. Worldwide, psychoactive drugs are responsible for 8.9% of all DALYs lost. The main impact is not due to illicit drugs (0.8% of DALYs) but to alcohol (4%) and tobacco (4.1%). The health burden attributable to tobacco and alcohol is particularly high for men in developed countries, mainly Europe and North America. Indeed, tobacco and alcohol combined are considered responsible for over a third of all male deaths in developed countries (26.3% are attributed to tobacco and 8% to alcohol). Moreover, the impact of tobacco is expected to increase in other parts of the world. More… Table 3.
