The United Nations recently released the World Drug Report, which announced a mind-boggling 140 million people across the globe smoke marijuana or its offspring, hash.

That is almost 2.5 percent of the world’s population.

Additionally, 13 million use cocaine, eight million use heroin and 30 million use amphetamines and methamphetamines (including crank).

If you add up all of those numbers, 191 million people world-wide use illicit drugs. However, it must be taken into consideration that some of the categories may overlap.

Take, for example, the stoner who graduates into a junkie or the tweeker who has no qualms about which powder he snorts.

The report also doesn’t specify how many people use psychedelics (including LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, soma juice, peyote and various secretions).

But it is rather difficult to try to imagine the scope of this problem. 191 million is too big of a number to be insignificant.

Try picturing every midwestern state being filled with drug users. Try picturing every citizen of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Miami either smoking a bowl or snorting a line.

Then you would almost be close. But not quite.

North America ranks higher than any other country (industrialized or not) in cocaine and marijuana use. The Midwest is now the crank capital of the world (some statistics estimate that nearly 68 percent of all North American methamphetamines originate in the Midwest).

Crime involving drugs is at an all-time high.

It was kind of strange that I ran into the World Drug Report statistics the other day. In the last two weeks, a lot of things occurred which brought this topic to mind.

The first was a co-worker who took some bad acid and ended up in the hospital. The bad acid (which turned out to be strychnine-laced speed), caused his brain to nearly stop functioning, as well as a mild heart attack.

This same co-worker didn’t learn his lesson from this.

After being released from the hospital, he bought a bag of pot from someone he didn’t know really well. It turns out the weed was laced with PCP.

He is now back in the hospital and will be there for quite some time.

I also have a friend who was recently busted by his dad. He had a half ounce of marijuana stashed in his room which his dad found.

His dad is not a stupid man. He knew his son was planning on selling some of it. So he gave my friend a lecture on the politics of selling drugs and grounded him for three months.

No Nintendo 64, stereo, visits, phone calls or anything else fun. Just three months to sit and think.

I’d like you to think about what my friend is probably thinking about (although I wouldn’t know because I can’t see him).

Worldwide, the sale of illicit drugs results in more that $400 billion a year in revenue. That results in an average of $2,000 per person spent each year on drugs.

So who is pocketing all of that money? Certainly not the drug dealer that you probably know.

He or she is just one of the many middle men in the drug syndicate. They take the big risks (including imprisonment and death) to provide a temporary high.

Usually their profit margin can be measured in hundreds of dollars. More than likely they sell just to receive a free fix.

These people are just like you and I for the most part. They have families that love them, steady jobs and a decent education. However, they like something a little different than the standard alcohol buzz.

Can you blame them? No, you cannot because more than likely you’ve used at least one illicit narcotic as well.

These decent people are taking the fall for heartless, cold-blooded drug cartels who make all of the money.

These people don’t care if the drugs they push are a pure substance or not. They don’t care about who gets hurt along the way. They only care about the bottom line and what a big line it is.

According to the World Drug Report, the drug trade is almost equal to the annual turnover in textiles.

We all know how big textile companies like Guess, Levi-Strauss, Polo and Tommy Hilfiger have become.

So the next time that you go to toke a bowl or snort a line, take the time to think about what you are doing.

Think of the innocent people who put themselves in harm’s way to deliver your high. Think of whose pockets your hard-earned money is going into. Think of the millions of people around the world that are just like you.

Doing drugs is no longer a rebellious act to protest against injustices like it was in the 1960s.

It is now the conformist platform that is causing so much pain and suffering across the planet.

Think about it.

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Ben Jones is a sophomore in English from Des Moines.