The number of people using drugs is projected to rise 11% by 2030 globally, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report on Thursday.
Roughly 275 million people globally used drugs in the past year, up from 226 million in 2010. This 22% increase was partly attributable to a 10% rise in the global population in the past decade.
The Vienna-based agency pulls together data from its wide network of member countries in its annual World Drug Report.
The UNODC warned that health-care systems worldwide were facing an increasingly tough task, with estimates suggesting that about 36 million people were suffering from drug use disorders in 2019, up from an earlier estimate of 27 million in 2010. This represents a rise from 0.6 to 0.7% of the global population.
Although the number of people with drug use disorders has increased, the availability of treatment interventions has remained low. Just one in eight of those suffering from a drug use disorder received professional help in 2019.
