2012 Worlds Drug Report visual

This morning while perusing the news, I found this very interesting statistical data about the Worlds drug use.

I came across this article on the Guardian that depicts Andy Cotgreave’s visual created from the 2012 Worlds Drug Report.

Some surprising stats gathered by the Guardian:

• 230 million people around the world – 1 in 20 of us – took illicit drugs in the last year
• The report also says that problem drug users, mainly heroin – and cocaine-dependent people number about 27 million, roughly 0.6% of the world adult population. That’s 1 in every 200 people.

What I found most interesting was that while the USA does not hold the highest rank of any drug use, in fact we aren’t even in the top three highest drug use rates for any one type of drug, the USA still has the second highest amount of drug related deaths.

Now perhaps you can say that it is impossible to accurately report this data. Perhaps, the US is more accurate in determining cause of death.

Or perhaps it is just that in the United States we tend to have such a problem with excess.  We want it all and we want it fast.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes by the Gaslight Anthem: “American girls, they want the whole world, they want every last little light in New York City.”

While the line wasn’t meant to apply to drugs what so ever, I think it taps into a very accurate mentality that many of us Americans- boys and girls- have.

This mentality that we can have it all.  We HAVE to have it all.  We have to have the BEST most INTENSE experience.  Everything has to be above and beyond. The concept of moderation is often lost.

With this mentality I  draw two conclusions form the statistics about death caused by drugs in the United States. Perhaps, either we as Americans need to get higher and higher and can never be high enough and eventually exceed or limit AND/OR perhaps our drug dealers are greedy and cut “pure” drugs with higher amounts of toxins that can more easily kill you then just the drug itself causing deaths from ingestion.

These are just ideas that the image stimulates in my brain.  They are by no means supported by any facts. They are just observations of this statistical data and my experience with American culture and the observation of drug use in our country.

What are your thoughts???