Summary of a report published by the Swedish National Institute of Public Health

Proportions that used illicit drugs

The population study indicated that approximately 23 per cent of the men and 12 per cent of the women in the population had used illicit drugs at some time in their lives. This means that approximately 600,000 men and 300,000 women 15-64 years of age have used illicit drugs at some time. In addition, 4 per cent of the men and 8 per cent of the women had used narcotics-classed or addictive medicines without or in excess of a physician’s prescription. This corresponds to 116,000 men and 200,000 women. These figures must be viewed as minimum numbers. The report discusses the value of asking about lifetime drug use. Among other aspects, it appears as if people forget or deny earlier use with increasing age.

Regular drug use

Two per cent of the men and 0.9 per cent of the women reported some type of illicit drug use in the past 30 days, corresponding to approximately 53,000 men and 24,000 women or a total of 77,000 people. Adding to this the 50,000 people who in the past 30 days had used prescription medicine without a doctor’s prescription, the total figure increases to 127,000 people. The population study indicates that the highest proportion of regular drug use is found among young men between the ages of 15 to 24, while the highest proportion among women is observed in the ages of 25 to 34. Regular drug use then decreases with increasing age for both genders. The results from the student survey do not indicate that students use illicit drugs more than others of the same age in the population. For prescription medicines, patterns opposite to illicit drugs are seen in terms of age and gender. Approximately twice as many women as men have used narcotics-classed or addictive medicines without or in excess of a doctor’s prescription.

Problematic use

Based on register data from the patient register and from the Prison and Probation Services, it was estimated that there were 29,500 problematic drug users. This corresponds to 38 per cent of the 77,000 people who confirm regular use of illicit drugs in the population survey, or 23 per cent of the 127,000 people who regularly use some type of illicit drug or presomption medicine without a doctors prescriptive. This means that there is a large group of people whose regular drug use does not lead them in to the health or corrections systems.

Festival participants

The participants at the two festivals studied, described considerably higher levels of drug use than their peers in the general population. Of the men, 61 per cent had used illicit drugs at some time in life, while this figure was 50 per cent among the women. Regular use was described by 26 per cent of the men and 16 per cent of the women. These high figures are probably partially due to the use of a different survey methodology at the festivals, which led to a significantly higher response rate. These results give reason for a qualified study of various study methods.

Restaurant personnel

In the study directed at restaurant personnel, where most participants were between the ages of 18 and 34, 31 per cent of the men and 18 per cent of the women said that they had used illicit drugs at some time in life. Regular use in the past month was described by 3.7 per cent of the men and 1.1 per cent of the women, which are roughly the same levels as in the general population in these age groups. Hidden drug usersThe attempt in one of the sub-studies to make contact with hidden drug users failed. The results from this sub-study, combined with the population study, indicate that there are two main groups among illicit drug users. In one group, drug use can be seen as a part of extensive social exclusion, with extensive complications. In the other group, drug use is more of the nature of hazardous use for people with otherwise relatively well-ordered social circumstances.

Psychosocially disadvantaged groups

Illicit drug use was more common in psychosocially disadvantaged groups. The associations often, but not always, point in the expected directions, with increasing illicit drug use being associated with increasing psychosocial problems. Altogether, the drug use that comes forth in this study appears to be diffusely spread in the population. The proportions that use illicit drugs are higher among disadvantaged individuals, although mostusers do not belong to disadvantaged groups.

Women more disadvantaged

The results indicate different living conditions for male and female drug users. Women with frequent drug use appear to be significantly more disadvantaged than men, with less social support and more psychiatric morbidity. The results also give rise to questions concerning the drug trend among the youngest group of women, who in some cases use more illicit drugs than men of the same age. However, this picture is not clear cut and further studies are needed to clarify the situation.

Use of multiple drugs

Many of the regular illicit drug users use several drugs at the same time. Many are also large-scale alcohol consumers. In the population study, 58 per cent of the regular illicit drug users are also hazardous drinkers.Among regular pharmaceutical users, this figure is 72 per cent. The figures for tobacco are not as high; 27 per cent of the regular users are also daily smokers. The figures illustrate a widespread polydrug use of various psychoactive drugs, which strongly increases the risk of both morbidity and mortality

Leave a Reply