11/07/2007 00:00:00
Italy: DRUG ADDICTION: ONE STUDENT IN FOUR USES CANNABIS
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Rome, 11th July - 24.5 per cent of students have made use of cannabis
"one or more times over the last twelve months"; 4 per cent have taken
cocaine and 1.6 per cent heroin.
The figures are from the Annual Report to Parliament on the State of
Drug Addiction in Italy 2006. Looking at problem consumption, (over
twenty times per year), cannabis is still in first place among student
consumers (around 26 per cent), followed by heroin (16 per cent) and
cocaine (12 per cent).
Piedmont is the region with the highest number of student consumers,
with 28 per cent having used drugs at least once over the previous
twelve months; Umbria takes first place for student consumption of
cocaine (nearly 5 per cent) and Molise for heroin (2 per cent).
Hallucinogenic and synthetic stimulants are evenly distributed across
the country. Going against the general population trend, there is a
growth in the use of alcohol among students, from 64.7 per cent in 2000
to 69.6 per cent of 2006. Also among school children there is a higher
number of female smokers (27.2 per cent in 2006) compared with male
smokers (26.6 per cent in 2006): "This is the only area of psycho-active
consumption - reads the report - in which there is a higher number of
consumers of female gender in absolute terms than of male gender". The
situation is reversed in the case of anabolic use, which is higher among
males: 21 per cent of them had taken them twenty times or more in 2006.
The concomitant use of various substances is concentrated among
students: from 2000 to today their percentage has remained unchanged at
a level of 22 per cent in both 2005 and 2006. Even among those, however,
a high percentage, 87 per cent, consume only cannabis.
http://www.agi.it/italy/news/200707111228-cro-ren0027-art.html
posted by http://www.lca-uk.org/
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=12681
Author:
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia via UKCIA
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