Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 25, Issue 3, May–June 2000, Pages 455-460
Addictive Behaviors

Brief report
Drug use and drinking among students in 36 countries

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4603(99)00013-1Get rights and content

Abstract

This article summarizes data on alcohol and drug use from studies of high school students in 36 countries. Drug use levels varied greatly among countries, but alcohol and cannabis were used most often, followed by amphetamines, ecstasy, and cocaine. In countries having high levels of cannabis use, the use of other drugs was also more common but there were no consistent differences for alcohol. Use of various drugs was correlated except for alcohol use, which was related to cannabis use only when some countries with low alcohol use levels were removed. In general, the studies show that drug use priorities for studies are mainly the same in the countries studied.

Section snippets

Method

A literature review of high school student drug use studies was done using the library resources of the Addiction Research Foundation (ARF). This included a search using Medline, ETOH, and the ARF library file system. Several hundred papers were found fitting some of the criteria; however, almost all were studies from the United States and Canada. Many were based on small samples, students other than those in high school, or did not cover the drugs of interest. However, usable data on high

Results

Table 1 shows the data for 36 countries expressed as percentages of high school studies reporting lifetime use of alcohol, cannabis, amphetamines, LSD or other hallucinogens, cocaine, and ecstasy. It also reports per-capita alcohol consumption in litres of absolute alcohol per person in the total population. The countries are arranged in three groups according to the level of cannabis use—high (more than 15% users), medium (10–15% users), and low (less than 10% users).

It is clear from the table

Discussion

Student use of alcohol and drugs varied considerably among the 36 countries. Alcohol was by far the most popular drug in all countries, followed by cannabis, amphetamines, ecstasy, and cocaine. Countries with the highest level of cannabis use also had the highest levels of use of amphetamines, ecstasy, and cocaine but not higher rates of alcohol use. Use of various drugs was highly correlated except for alcohol, which correlated with drug use only when certain outlier countries were removed.

Of

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