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According to a survey by the World Health Organization, Americans are number one drug abusers in the world in terms of cocaine and marijuana use despite having touch anti-drug laws.

The survey published in PLoS Medicine asked questions about legalized drug use, such as alcohol and tobacco, and illegal drug use, including cocaine and marijuana from more than 54,000 adults in 17 countries.

The data showed that 16 percent Americans were more likely to report using cocaine (the second most popular illegal recreational drug in the U.S.) in their lifetime than the next closest country, New Zealand with 4 percent. It is commonly used in middle to upper class communities and is popular amongst college students, not just to aid in studying, but also as a party drug.

Marijuana (Cannabis) use was more widely reported worldwide, and the U.S. also had the highest rate of use at 42.4% compared with 41.9% of New Zealanders.

On the other hand in the Netherlands, which has more liberal drug policies than the U.S., only 1.9% of people reported cocaine use and 19.8% reported marijuana use.

Tobacco use was also most common in the U.S. (74%), followed by Lebanon (67%) and Mexico (60%).

According to Louisa Degenhardt, a researcher in the University of New South Wales, Australia:

Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones.

Gender and socioeconomic differences were also found in both legal and illegal drug use. For example, men were more likely than women to have used legal and illegal drugs, and younger adults were more likely than older adults to have used drugs of all kinds.

Countries which participated in the survery are: Colombia, Mexico, United States, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, South Africa, Japan, China and New Zealand.