An estimated 292 million people worldwide used drugs in 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That’s roughly 1 in every 27 people on the planet. The number has climbed steadily over the past decade, driven by population growth, expanded drug markets, and shifting legal landscapes for substances like cannabis.
Global Drug Use by Substance
Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the world by a large margin. Around 219 million people used it in 2021, a 21% jump from about 181 million a decade earlier. That growth reflects both rising demand and the wave of legalization and decriminalization across North America and parts of Europe.
After cannabis, the next most common substances break down roughly like this:
- Opioids (non-medical use): 60.4 million people globally, including 31.5 million who use opiates like heroin
- Amphetamines: 30 million users
- Cocaine: 23 million users
These categories overlap. A person who uses both cannabis and cocaine, for instance, gets counted in both substance totals but only once in the overall 292 million figure. The totals also exclude alcohol and tobacco, which are legal in most countries and used by far more people.
Drug Use in the United States
The U.S. has some of the most detailed drug use surveillance in the world, and the numbers are striking. SAMHSA’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that over 42 million adults had a substance use disorder in the past year. Among adolescents aged 12 to 17, another 1.7 million met the criteria.
Those figures capture people whose drug use has crossed into a clinical problem, not casual or one-time users. The broader population of Americans who used any illicit substance in the past year is considerably larger. Among high school seniors surveyed in 2024, 26.2% reported using an illicit drug in the past year, a figure tracked annually by the Monitoring the Future study.
How Many People Die From Drug Use
In the United States, 79,384 people died from drug overdoses in 2024, a rate of about 23 deaths per 100,000 people. That number actually represents a decline from the peak years of the overdose crisis, but it still amounts to more than 200 deaths every day. Synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl, drive the majority of these fatalities.
Globally, overdose deaths are harder to track because many countries lack reliable reporting systems. But the U.S. alone accounts for a disproportionate share of the world’s overdose mortality, largely because of the severity of its fentanyl supply problem.
The Treatment Gap
One of the most significant numbers in drug use statistics isn’t how many people use substances. It’s how few get help when they need it. Among Americans aged 12 and older who needed substance use treatment in 2024, only about 1 in 5 (19.3%, or 10.2 million people) actually received it.
The gap is even wider than it looks. Among the 40.7 million adults who had a substance use disorder and didn’t receive treatment, 95.6% never even sought help or thought they needed it. For adolescents, the picture is similar: 93.3% of the 1.5 million teens with untreated substance use disorders didn’t look for treatment or believe they should. These numbers suggest the barrier isn’t just access to clinics or insurance coverage. Most people with a drug problem don’t yet see it as one.
Why the Numbers Keep Growing
Several forces push the global count upward. The world’s population is larger and younger in many regions where drug markets are expanding, particularly in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. Cannabis legalization in dozens of jurisdictions means more people report use openly, and more people try it for the first time. Synthetic drugs, which can be manufactured anywhere without relying on crop harvests, have made stimulants and opioids cheaper and more available than ever.
At the same time, the line between “drug use” and “drug problem” matters. The 292 million figure includes everyone from a person who smoked cannabis once at a party to someone injecting heroin daily. Most people who use drugs in a given year do not develop a substance use disorder. Cannabis, the dominant substance by volume, carries a lower risk of dependency than opioids or methamphetamine, though regular use still leads to a use disorder in roughly 10% of people who try it.
The global trajectory is clear: more people are using drugs each year, the substances available are more potent and diverse than a generation ago, and treatment systems in most countries reach only a fraction of those who need them.