Addiction risks
April 18, 2012
OPIOIDS have the highest risk of
causing mortality when looking at
drugs of addiction, including
alcohol and cocaine.
The finding is part of a study by
the US Centre for Addiction and
Mental Health published in Drug
and Alcohol Dependence which
tracked the records of more than
800,000 individuals hospitalised
with drug dependence between
1990 and 2005.
The study found that for people
dependent on opioids, the risk of
death was 5.71 times higher than
healthy individuals.
Opioids were closely followed by
methamphetamine for mortality
risks, with researchers finding that
compared to healthy individuals
meth users had a 4.67-fold higher
risk of death, followed by those
with addictions to cannabis (3.85),
alcohol (3.83) and cocaine (2.96).
Interestingly, despite the risks,
researchers found that alcohol
addiction was related to the highest
number of deaths overall, with
alcohol dependence found to have
affected the highest number of
individuals in the study, with
166,482 deaths and 582,771
hospitalisations over the 15 year
study period.
“One surprising finding was the
high rate of death among cannabis
users,” said study head Dr Stephen
Kish.
“There could be many potential
reasons, including the fact that they
may have other chronic illnesses
such as psychiatric illnesses or
AIDS, which can also increase the
risk of death,” he posited.
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