Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

202 accounted for approximately 71% of the total “disability-adjusted life years” lost due to drug use disorders (excluding alcohol) globally. For European Union countries, the report “Drug-related deaths and mortality in Europe” produced by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in 2021 demonstrates that this group of countries counted over 8,300 deaths from overdose involving one or more illicit drugs in 2018. Most cases involved multiple substances. Opioids, mainly heroin and opioids used in medical treatment as a substitute for heroin such as methadone or buprenorphine accounted for 80% to 90% of all deaths with variations among countries. In our region, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), deaths from drug overdose (excluding alcohol) in the United States were approximately 107 thousand in 2021 (Ahmad et al., 2022). In general, the trend shows an increase over time as observed in Figure1. Figure 1. 12 Month-ending provisional number of deaths from drug overdose: United States. (based on data available for analysis on May 1 st , 2022). Source: Ahmad, F., Cisewski, J., Rossen, L. & Sutton, P. (2022). Provisional count of deaths from drug overdose. National Center for Health Statistics. Indeed, from 2015 to 2017, the number of deaths from overdose increased from 48,000 to 71,000 and remained stable in 2018 and 2019 at around 70,000 deaths. It then grew to over 100,000 in the year 2021; that