Half of cannabis users seeking treatment take the drug daily

More than half of cannabis users who seek outpatient treatment in Malta are daily users, according to a report on the State of the Drugs Problem in Europe.

The report is produced annually by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and covers the EU member states as well as Croatia, Turkey and Norway.

Overall in these countries 22 per cent of primary cannabis users seeking outpatient treatment were occasional users (or had not used the drug in the month before entering treatment).

They would have probably been referred to treatment by the criminal justice system.

The report said that 11 per cent, (across the surveyed countries) used cannabis weekly or less often; about 17 per cent used it two to six times a week; and 50 per cent were daily users - the most problematic group.

Considerable differences could be observed between countries.

While in Hungary, Romania and Croatia, more than half of cannabis clients were occasional users, in Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, France, Malta and the Netherlands more than 50 per cent were daily users.

Malta was among seven countries, namely Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Romania, Finland, Sweden, Norway, that reported overall stable and low lifetime prevalence of cannabis use during the period.

The report quoted the ESPAD school surveys carried out in 2007 to establish the lifetime prevalence of cocaine use among 15 to 16-year-old school students.

This had increased by at least two percentage points since 2003 in France, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Malta was also among the countries reporting the highest well-documented estimates of opioid use, together with Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg.

The proportion of injecting drug users among notified cases of hepatitis C declined in six countries between 2003 and 2008, and increased in three, namely the Czech Republic, Malta and the United Kingdom.

While 13 per cent of overdose deaths reported in Europe occured among those aged under 25 years, in Austria, Romania and Malta percentages of 40 per cent or more were reported.

This, the report said, might indicate a younger population of heroin users or injectors in these countries.