NEWS | Wednesday, 15 April 2009

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Surveys show that Maltese young people are more tolerant towards hard drugs than other Europeans, but less tolerant towards soft drugs. Is our national attitude towards substance abuse the opposite of that prevalent in Europe? JAMES DEBONO analyses Malta’s apparently topsy-turvy statistics

While Maltese young people consider cannabis to be more dangerous than their age cohorts in the European Union, they also consider heroin, cocaine and ecstasy to be less dangerous. And while heroin and cocaine are deemed to be more accessible in Malta than in many other EU countries, cannabis is apparently harder to find.
This emerges from a recent Eurobarometer survey about young people’s attitudes towards drugs, published last year. In the study, 250 young Maltese people aged between 15 and 24 years were interviewed.
Of all EU member states, Malta’s young people come in at the lowest place of a chart mapping European attitudes towards cocaine. The average for European young people who consider cocaine to pose “a high risk to health” stands at 85%. In Malta, only 76% of young people think likewise.
Along with the UK respondents, 20% of the Maltese believe that cocaine only poses a medium risk to a person’s health.
The perception that legal drugs are somehow ‘safer’ is also noticeably higher in Malta than other EU countries. While 28% of European young people think that tobacco poses a high health risk, the statistic falls to 19% of their Maltese cohorts. And while 24% of European view alcohol as high risk drug, only 11% of the Maltese agree.
In contrast, 52% of Maltese young people perceive cannabis to be very risky, making Malta the fifth ranking country in the EU to fear cannabis. Only 40% of European youths consider cannabis as a high risk drug.
Maltese youths also consider heroin and cocaine to be relatively easy to obtain compared to most other EU member states. While 72% of young people in the European Union think that obtaining heroin is difficult, the statistic for Malta falls to just over half (53%).
In fact it is easier than Malta to acquire heroin in only two other countries, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Heroin is less accessible in all other states, especially Finland and France.
A similar disparity exists also with cocaine. Of Maltese respondents, only 44% said that cocaine is difficult to obtain. The average European response to the same question stands at 61%.
The survey puts Malta in third place when it comes to ease of access to cocaine, after Ireland and Spain.
On the other hand, cannabis is deemed more difficult to obtain in Malta than in the rest of Europe – although it remains more available than either heroin or cocaine. While 38% of Maltese respondents deemed obtaining cannabis difficult, only 34% of European young people thought likewise. In Spain – where the drug is widely tolerated, even if illegal – only 15% said there was any difficulty in obtaining cannabis.
The survey also shows the Maltese to have most faith in the treatment and rehabilitation of drug users, with 44% saying it is the most or second most effective way to deal with drug problems in society.
Surprisingly, young people in Malta tend to favour the legalisation of hard drugs more than their European cohorts. While 97% of European young people want to keep heroin banned, 92% of their Maltese cohorts express the same opinion. And while 95% of Europeans want cocaine to remain banned, 90% of the Maltese think so.
But opposition to the legalization of cannabis is higher among Maltese young people, with 67% Europeans want the soft drug banned, rising to 79% in Malta.

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