A new study re­leased by the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) has found that drug use dis­or­ders are a ma­jor and grow­ing pub­lic health prob­lem in the Amer­i­c­as, in­clud­ing the Caribbean.

It said that drug use is among the top 10 risk fac­tors con­tribut­ing to all-cause mor­tal­i­ty and dis­abil­i­ty in the re­gion.

PA­HO said that in 2021, an es­ti­mat­ed 17.7 mil­lion peo­ple in the Amer­i­c­as were liv­ing with a drug use dis­or­der, re­sult­ing in near­ly 78,000 deaths di­rect­ly at­trib­ut­able to these dis­or­ders, rep­re­sent­ing a mor­tal­i­ty rate four times high­er than the glob­al av­er­age.