How Does Drug Abuse Affect Society?
Drug abuse is dangerous, not just for the person misusing the drug. The harm from drug abuse extends to family, friends, and society as a whole. When it comes to drug abuse, there are costs, and the prices aren’t only monetary. Drug abuse costs lives, destroys familial and community bonds, and erodes societal trust and productivity.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the cumulative effects of drug abuse and addiction to tobacco and alcohol cost the United States over $740 billion each year due to crime, lost work productivity, and health care. The abuse of prescription opioids, on its own, accounts for over $78 billion, with approximately $26 billion of that money in healthcare costs.4
These costs are monetary funds that could be allocated to other needs, such as education, food, and preventative healthcare. Instead, $740 billion of the nation’s money is diverted to the cost of drug abuse.4
Overdose Deaths Among Demographics
Drug overdose deaths occur at varying rates in specific demographics. The following reflects one example of how disparities and demographics can affect opioid abuse
A study published in 2021 in the American Journal of Public Health found that opioid deaths within the black community rose by 38%, despite robust efforts to prevent and treat opioid abuse. The highest increases in opioid deaths in blacks were found in Kentucky, with a 46% increase. Ohio came in second with a 45% increase. No increases were found in any other racial demographics.18
And most tragically of all – The ever growing substance us amongst adolescents that is only fuelled by the ever increasing tacit and overt ‘permission’ models in play. So called ‘grown ups’ demanding their ‘right’ to get ‘stoned’ with impunity.
A Society is supposed to model best-practice to it’s emerging generation. Instead we only model self-indulgence, entitlement, carelessness and point blank recalcitrant hedonism – Who pays? Our children, and at ever increasing rates
