The lowest use of ‘legal highs’

The European Commission regularly conducts studies on the drug phenomenon in EU member states and reports in its most recent flash Eurobarometer that “the use of drugs, particularly among young people, is at a historically high level”.

New psychoactive substances that imitate the effects of illicit drugs are gaining immense popularity in the EU drug scene. Indeed, as has been held in the World Drug Report 2011, “while global markets for cocaine, heroin and cannabis declined or remained stable, the production and abuse of prescription opioid drugs and new synthetic drugs rose”.

The term “legal highs” refers to psychoactive substances that produce similar effects to cocaine and ecstasy but as they are new on the market they are not, as yet, controlled by legislation. With these unregulated psychoactive substances emerging, governments are acting fast to introduce laws to ban or regulate the sale of such substances that pose high health risks.

The flash Eurobarometer on Youth Attitudes On Drugs (June 2011), which is a survey carried out on over 12,000 randomly selected young people (aged 15 to 24) in all 27 EU member states, features Malta in an extremely positive light. It explores youth perceptions on the health risks of drug use, attitudes to banning or regulating substance, views on the availability of drugs, opinions on the effectiveness of policies and also addresses, for the first time, youth attitudes on the use of new psychoactive substances (“legal highs”), which, as trends show, are gaining popularity among European youth.

On average, about five per cent of the young respondents said they had used “legal highs”, with Ireland (16 per cent), Poland (nine per cent), Latvia (nine per cent) and the UK (eight per cent) among countries at the upper end and Malta, Italy and Finland (all one per cent) at the lower end.

With regard to the use of cannabis, Malta also featured positively. It was reported that 92 per cent of Maltese young people never used cannabis. This was lower than most other EU countries and lower than the European average.

On another positive note, the 2011 Eurobarometer shows that the proportions of young people who thought that regular use of cannabis would pose a high risk to a person’s health were among the largest in Malta.

Informing and educating the public on the risks and effects drugs pose to one’s health is another issue addressed by the Eurobarometer study. In both the 2008 and 2011 reports, the most frequently mentioned information channel in all EU countries was a media campaign followed by school prevention programmes and the internet.

Maltese youth ranked among the highest with regard to receiving information about the risks and effects of illicit drug use through a media campaign organised in the past year. In relation to this, Malta was one of the only two member states to have reported using a telephone helpline according to the 2011 Eurobarometer and was the only country where more than one-tenth of young people (11 per cent) were reported to have called a helpline to get information about the risks and effects of illicit drug use in the 2008 Eurobarometer. Demand reduction continues to be a priority on the national agenda.

In the context of banning or regulating “legal highs”, the 2011 Eurobarometer reports Malta as having a high proportion of youth who preferred to look at the risk a substance poses to someone’s health when deciding which new substances to ban. This may indicate that Maltese youth are among the most discerning in the EU, basing their decisions on substantial issues, the main being what is most hazardous to health rather than basing their decisions on opinion or moral judgement.

When asked about what they consider to be the most effective ways for governments and public authorities to control drug problems encountered in their countries, the interviewees were provided with a list of actions to rank.

The majority of EU respondents opined to address the problem through the supply side of the drug economy. In fact, 64 per cent of the total respondents favoured tough measures against drug dealers and traffickers. On the demand side, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation were seen as more effective with regard to drug users than strict measures.

Interestingly, the legalisation of drugs did not rank high as one of the effective ways to combat drug abuse. Reducing the possible root causes of poverty and unemployment together with providing further leisure opportunities were mentioned by 24 per cent and 23 per cent of the respondents respectively. Nearly half of the respondents opted for information and prevention campaigns and 37 per cent chose treatment and rehabilitation of drug users as being the most effective of reducing drug problems.

In the case of Maltese respondents, only nine per cent opted for reducing poverty and unemployment while a strong 55 per cent preferred to address the problem through information and prevention campaigns. This might indicate a lack of acknowledgement that certain groups in Maltese society continue to experience social exclusion.

In conclusion, the majority of responses for Malta in the 2011 flash Eurobarometer are certainly seen as positive.

This is good news to all those involved in the prevention of substance use in Malta and is testament to the endless efforts by the agencies involved in the prevention of substance abuse that work hard to promote a culture of health among the community and young people in particular.

Moreover, the National Coordinating Unit for Drugs and Alcohol within the Ministry of Education, Employment and the Family, which is responsible for facilitating the effective implementation of the national drugs policy, has certainly contributed in this regard. Above all, in view of combating drug abuse locally, the National Commission on the Abuse of Drugs, Alcohol and other Dependencies urges the continuous prevention and provision of education to young people to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Dr Buttigieg is secretary of the National Commission on the Abuse of Drugs, Alcohol and Other Dependencies.