How climate change increases cases of substance abuse

Climate change has caused temperatures to rise globally, prompting several environmental and health consequences. For instance, warmer temperatures have led to an increase in extreme weather, a growing risk of wildfires, and a rise in ocean temperatures. Evidence has also found that climate change can lead to a higher risk of dementia and other mental and behavioral problems. Now, experts have found that an increase in substance abuse could also be linked to climate change because of the extreme heat and stress associated with it.

How does climate change lead to substance abuse?

Elevated temperatures have been linked to increased hospital visits due to alcohol and substance disorders, according to a new study published in the journal Communications Medicine. Data collected over 20 years showed a 24.6% increase in alcohol disorder-related hospitalizations and a 38.8% increase in hospitalizations for other substances, including opioids, cocaine, cannabis, and sedatives. Researchers say the planet has warmed an average of 0.08 degrees Celsius per decade since the mid-1800s, though the majority of that warming is from 1975 on and at a rate of 0.20 per decade. Regarding the increase in substance abuse-related hospitalizations, experts have speculated that the study's numbers likely fail to reflect the full scope of the problem, seeing as not everyone struggling with substance abuse goes to the hospital. 

Climate change leads to “psychosocial stress arising from the destabilization of social, environmental, economic, and geopolitical support systems; increased rates of mental disorders; increased physical-health burden; incremental harmful changes to established behavior patterns; and worry about the dangers of unchecked climate change,” according to a 2022 study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science. Many look to substances to cope with these effects. 

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Additionally, “exposure to climate-related stressors — such as storms, floods, wildfires, and droughts — can lead to physical and psychological distress that often persists for months after the event,” Francis Vergunst, co-author of the 2022 study, told Wired. “Young people face disproportionate risks because of their high vulnerability to mental health problems and substance-use disorders,” the study said.

What can be done?

“Public health interventions that broadly target alcohol and substance disorders in warmer weather — for example, targeted messaging on the risks of their consumption during warmer weather — should be a public health priority,” senior author of the Communications Medicine study, Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, said in a news release. There should also be an improvement in mental health services globally. “Enhanced social infrastructure and health system interventions could mitigate these impacts,” the study noted.

Those already struggling with mental health issues might feel the effects of warming temperatures more than others. “People with mental illness do not tolerate heat as well as others because of the chemistry of their illness,” The American Psychiatric Association explained. In addition, they are “at increased risk for heat illness and mortality from medications that prevent an optimal response to physiological heat stress.” As a result, researchers posit that “further research could also study how existing health conditions might be exacerbated by alcohol or substance use combined with increased temperatures,” Forbes reported.

“There’s a lot of stress because people aren’t able to understand how the climate will keep changing,” Shubhangi Kamble, a health care worker from India, told Wired. Studying and understanding the impact of the climate crisis on mental health is a key step in addressing substance abuse problems, but taking proper action to mitigate the overall issue of warming temperatures is the most important.