Drugs Are Making Our Nation's Mental Health Crisis Worse | Opinion

(Newsweek) America is facing dual crises: a drug crisis and a mental health crisis. Both contribute to and worsen the other. During Mental Health Awareness Month, it is important that those on the front lines of these crises come together with lawmakers to acknowledge the two-way relationship between drug use and mental illness and chart a course forward that increases access to treatment that addresses their root causes.

The relationship between drug use and mental health issues moves in both directions. As the National Institute on Drug Abuse points out, "many individuals who develop substance use disorders (SUD) are also diagnosed with mental disorders, and vice versa." Those with mental health issues are more likely to use drugs, perhaps to cope or self-medicate. And those who use drugs are more likely to develop mental health issues, given the inherent risks of many illicit drugs.

The 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 57 percent of those over the age of 18 with a drug use disorder also had a mental illness, defined as a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder other than a developmental or substance use disorder. Twenty-two percent of adults with a drug use disorder had a serious mental illness.

Likewise, nearly one in four people over the age of 18 with any mental illness also had a drug use disorder, and more than a third of those with a serious mental illness had a drug use disorder. In comparison, among those with no mental illness, only 5.5 percent had a drug use disorder, while adults with a mental illness were more than four times as likely to have a drug use disorder.

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