Researchers used new statistical methods to analyze public data on the global health burden due to drug addiction. But is this considerable global health burden increasing or decreasing? Over the same period, the global prevalence (that is, total cases) of DUD increased by 34% to 53.1 million people. The global number of deaths more than doubled over the same period, from 61,774 to 137,278 deaths per year. For example, high-income North America showed an 11.2-fold increase in drug-related deaths between 1990 and 2021, to 74,451 deaths in 2021.