الفهرس 
Introduction and RationaleOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The developing world has made tremendous social progress during the past 30 years: ”Infant mortality rates have been cut in half, total fertility rates have been lowered by 40 percent, and life expectancy has increased by nearly a decade. However, enormous variation exists across countries and clearly basic problems still plague a majority of the world’s people. While progress in social and economic development has been slow but positive, the opposite has occurred with problems related to drug abuse and addictive disorders. Their number and complexity have increased many times, and information about their distribution and impact is no more complete today than it was decades ago. 1. Cannabis and drugs has become widely established among teenagers and young adults in a broad range of developing countries. 2. There are a number of health harms from drugs abuse. 3. The probability and scale of harm among heavy cannabis users is modest compared with that caused by many other psychoactive substances, both legal and illegal, in common use, namely, alcohol,tobacco, amphetamines, cocaine and heroin. 4. Recently, concerns have been expressed about increased potency of cannabis products. Average THC content in many countries probably has increased, at least in part because of the illegality of cannabis production. The health consequences of any such increases will depend on the extent to which users can titrate the dose of THC.
There are variations over time in rates of drugs use within and between countries, affected much by the probability of arrest or penalties for use or sale.