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The United States is still the largest market for illegal drugs in the world, says the latest report from the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), noting that marijuana and prescription drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin are the most widely used drugs in the country. The report says use of cocaine declined last year.

"The board is concerned with what we see as the creeping normalization of the use of cannabis in the United States" said INCB member Melvyn Levitsky at the release of the organization's annual report today.

Levitsky also raised a red flag about cannabis users requiring emergency medical care as a result of drug use.

"If you look at the US statistics, for a long time, there were no instances of people going to emergency rooms for being "strung out" on marijuana. Now, the largest number of emergency room visits, in terms of drug abuse, have to do with marijuana"

Levitsky says indirect advertising and promotion of drugs in the media as well as medical marijuana initiatives in some US states have lead to a weakening of controls and will on the matter.

"Medicinal marijuana, something that is not backed up by a scientific base, is decided in some cases by referendum rather than through the normal system for testing and evaluating"

The INCB report recommends that all elements of prevention , including drug education in schools, should become a focal point for governments. The INCB also supports alternative sentencing and treatment for drug users instead of jail time. It estimates that between170-250 million people around the world used an illegal drug in the past year.