A third of Europeans have tried illegal drugs! - Which countries consume more?
Almost one in three Europeans have sampled illicit drugs in their lifetime, but not every country is the same when it comes to their drug habits or their impact on health. Regular drug use is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, mental health issues, accidents and infectious diseases such as HIV when it comes to injecting drugs.
Across the European Union, 15 percent of young people have used cannabis plants in the past year, while 2.5 percent have used cocaine, according to a report by the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Among all adults, cannabis use is highest in the Czech Republic, Italy, France and Spain and lowest in Malta, Turkey and Hungary, EU data show. Meanwhile, cocaine use is highest in the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, and lowest in Turkey, Portugal, Poland and Hungary.
In particular, how tough a country is on drugs doesn't seem to make much of a difference in their availability, at least for young people, according to Sabrina Molinaro, an epidemiologist and research director at Italy's National Research Council, which coordinates the European School. Alcohol and Other Drug Survey Project.
"The major penalties only affect people who use the substance once or less a year, so not the real [heavy] users," Molinaro said. Her survey has tracked drug use among 16-year-olds in Europe since the 1990s.
She said generational trends in drug habits are remarkably stable over time, meaning the patterns of today's youth will show up in adult-level data years from now.
For example, while adolescent boys have historically been more likely than girls to use cannabis, that gap has narrowed in recent years, with girls' use even outstripping boys in some countries, she said.
Cannabis and cocaine are the two most widely used illegal drugs in the EU, but other drugs, such as MDMA (also called molly or ecstasy), heroin and other opioids, psychedelics and synthetic drugs are at increasing risk and Europe is full with more drugs than the EU monitoring agency said earlier this year.
Synthetic drugs such as cannabinoids and lab-made stimulants are a particular concern because it is difficult for national authorities to identify problematic compounds, then ban them and stop traffickers quickly enough, Molinaro said.
According to EUDA, hundreds of synthetic drug laboratories were dismantled in the EU in 2022 and the following year, the early warning system detected seven new synthetic opioid substances, which are very powerful. "This is a very big health issue in the adult population," Molinaro said.
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