Cannabis use among Irish 15- to 16-year-olds is the third highest in the EU and is reaching "saturation point", the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has said.
The biggest drug threat facing Europe's young people, however, is alcohol, says the Lisbon-based centre in its annual report published yesterday in which it expresses particular concern about increasing rates of "binge" drinking among Europe's youth.
This is of particular concern in Ireland and Norway, says the report, where the proportion of young Irish people who reported having had five or more drinks in a row in the previous five days had increased from 47 per cent to 57 per cent since 1995. In Norway it increased from 37 per cent to 50 per cent.
As reported yesterday, 15 per cent of Irish 15- to 16-year-olds said they had been drunk 40 times or more in their lives, compared with 24 per cent of Danish young people and 18 per cent of British people in this age group.
Cannabis, however, remains the illicit drug most frequently used by young people across Europe, with about one-third of 15- to 16-year-olds having tried it at least once in a number of countries. Some 35 per cent of British and French people in this age group had tried it, while 32 per cent of young Irish people had. The next highest rates were in Spain (30 per cent) and the Netherlands (28 per cent).
The report says "the use of cannabis among young people in Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom [may have\] reached saturation levels", given that levels of around 30 per cent appeared to mark such a point.
Speaking at yesterday's publication, the centre's executive director, Mr Georges Estievenart, said drug use among young people across Europe had "risen steadily" over the last decade.
He said one answer to reducing drug use was "to invest more in prevention among those we know are vulnerable and where drug and alcohol use is most intensive".
Ireland's intake of ecstasy is also among the highest across all age groups. "After cannabis [amphetamines and ecstasy] are the second most commonly used illicit drugs with lifetime adult consumption ranging from 0.5 per cent to 5 per cent."
Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Britain, are four countries where ecstasy use is higher than 3 per cent of all adults. The figure here is 4 per cent.
Amphetamine use is low here. It accounts for about one-third of people treated for problem drug use in Finland and Sweden, and just 0.4 per cent here.
The report says increases in the numbers of people injecting opiate here since 1996 is "worrying" and "should be acted on". There are an estimated 5.6 opiate users per 1,000 Irish adults (15 to 64 years).
The report, however, praises Ireland's approach to dealing with problem drug use, saying that Ireland and Britain are the only EU member-states to have "clear standards for the content of school-based prevention", while Ireland, Britain and Spain have "developed a clear quality control and evidence-based orientation in their prevention policies".
