Opiate Usage by Country 2024

The words opiate and opioid are often used interchangeably, but they are actually distinct terms. Opiates are a specific type of opioid that are derived from natural sources. Opioid, then, is an umbrella term covering both opiates and their synthetic copycats. Common opiates are opium, morphine, and heroin. Synthetic forms of opiates include fentanyl and many legally produced pharmaceuticals, which means that while they are opioids, they are not opiates.

When you hear the word "opiate," the phrase "opioid crisis" immediately springs to mind. The opioid crisis is a health trend around the rising number of opioid-related deaths. These overdoses began with prescription drugs in the 1990s and shifted to heroin around 2010, before synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl became more prevalent in 2013.

In the United States, the opioid crisis killed almost 645,000 people between 1999 and 2021. What makes this crisis so hard to address is that opioids exist in both legal and illegal forms, and it's not just the illegal forms killing people. In fact, the CDC's conservative estimate of deaths from prescription opioid overdose in 2021 is forty-five people per day.

This crisis is not contained to the United States. The United Nations Department of Drugs and Crime estimates that the number of people who use recreational opioids is 60 million, with over half of those people using opiates. This same report shows that 75% of opiate users are men, although only 53% of nonmedical users of pharmaceutical opioids are men.

Additionally, the report shows that 31% of countries ranked opioids as the number one drug leading to drug use disorders. While this is less than the 46% of countries that reported cannabis as the number one problem drug, opioids remain a devastating problem worldwide. Opioids caused 70% of deaths related to drug use disorder and 71% of the "healthy years of life lost owing to premature death and disability in 2019."