Survey shows drug use among MCAST students

Just over a fifth of students at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology have used cannabis in their lifetime and seven per cent have used heroin, with the same proportion having used cocaine, according to a Sedqa survey.

Sedqa's primary prevention team manager Paul Pace said these preliminary results showed that drug use among students at the college corresponded to the national figures.

He was speaking during an MCAST staff development seminar on substance misuse awareness. Mr Pace said 59 per cent of MCAST students have smoked tobacco in their lifetime, 45 per cent over the last 12 months.

The percentages for alcohol were 96 per cent for lifetime use, 92 per cent in the last year; tranquillisers eight per cent and 5.5 per cent; inhalants nine per cent and five per cent; ecstasy five per cent and 2.5 per cent; cocaine seven per cent and six per cent; and heroin seven per cent, nil.

The full study report is being published next year and more detailed preliminary results next month.

Sedqa clinical director George Grech said that substance abuse in general was starting earlier on in life. Sedqa, he said, was giving young people the evidence of the problem and leaving it up to them to take decisions. More work was being done on prevention.

He said that over 90 per cent of drug users started using drugs because of peer pressure. Most did not become dependent but a number did.

Most of those who became dependent had been sexually or physically abused and were trying to heal themselves. He told the MCAST staff that there were very few professionals able to deal with the problem of sexual abuse and it was important that such problems were referred to the right people.

Dr Grech said that cocaine, which through crack had become the poor man's drug, was becoming increasingly popular among younger people. While cocaine powder used to cost hundreds of liri, with crack - which is cocaine washed in sodium bicarbonate - one could have a field day for Lm2 to Lm3.

Another popular drug was the synthetic amphetamine ecstasy. This showed that there was a large consumption locally of such pills. Ecstasy, he said, had both a short and long term effect and there was currently a 16-year-old at the Intensive Therapy Unit because of ecstasy consumption.

Partygoers, Dr Grech said, usually consumed three to five ecstasy pills during a party.

On heroin, he said that a new treatment for addicts was launched three months ago. The treatment, bupromorphine, replaces methadone. It is an expensive drug and unlike methadone, it is not given free of charge.

In spite of this, there were already 90 heroin users on it. This shows that people were willing to try to get rid of their habit.

Drug abuse, Dr Grech said, was a preventable behaviour, drug addiction a treatable disease.