Cocaine users in Portugal are mainly young men and graduates | drugs
They are mainly men, aged between 25 and training at 34, with complete higher education and working full-time on behalf of others. This is the profile of cocaine consumer-type in Portugal, determined by a inquiry connected from the Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction carried out in several countries, including Portugal, through the Service for Intervention of Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (SICAD), the European Dependency Data were released to us this Tuesday. According to the author of the study, Ludmila Carapinha, these users are mostly “socially integrated people, who work or study and who consume cocaine”.
According to the document “Cocaine in Portugal: European Online Drug Survey 2021”, men represent a total of 69% of consumers of cocaine. When they consume, occasionally, they do it Accompanied by two to three people to have fun. The most common way is to inhale powdered cocaine.
Together, the age groups from 25 to 34 years old and from 18 to 24 years old represent 74% of the total consumers — 42% and 32%, respectively. In the case of people between 45 and 54 years old, this number drops to 7% and to 1% in the next age group, between 55 and 64 years old.
Bearing in mind that cocaine use is carried out in “specific contexts of luxury and leisure”, as it refers to the number of users who uprooted consumer”. “Therefore, [o consumo] In most cases, it is not, in most cases, associated with a situation of marginalization and is not social, so it is surprising that there is an important proportion of consumers who have higher education training and who attend education .”
the inquiry connected, which was self-administered, had drug users aged 18 or over in March as its target population and was promoted in about 30 countries between May 2021 and May 2021, with a temporal month for consumption related to the 12 previous horizons. In Portugal, 2 did not participate, and the majority study in the 5 regions of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo (39%).
These are people with complete higher education (41%, to which more than 20% are added when considering those who still attend university). Consumers with secondary education represent 26% of the total (7% more to attend) and the rest have less education.
“A consumption that is a very risky consumption”
As for the employment situation, almost half (49%) of consumers are employed and work full-time (4% more part-time); 10% full-time self-employed also part-time (plus 2% part-time); 16% are exclusively students (plus 6% who are student workers) and the rest are not employed.
When asked about the reasons for using cocaine, 74% said it was to get the “high”/to have fun; 50% pointed to socialization; 18% to reduce the stress; 12% for experimenters; 10% to improve performance (school, sport, work, etc.); 9% to treat a depression/anxiety; 1% to reduce pain/inflammation and 0.9% to improve sleep.
Despite the majority of users consuming sporadically, the study warns that “it is very risky to be of quality because a substance consumes sporadically a consumption is a frequent consumption of adulterations”.
“When you are going to consume, even if you always have the supplier to buy from the same, for example, consuming that there is confidence from previous situations, there is always a high degree of knowledge regarding the care that is going to be taken”, he underlines, at the same time. time that remembers that “it can even one occurs overdose”.
The majority of consumers who responded to the survey earned a salary equal to or greater than 5 euros and less than 1,000 euros, representing 46% of the total. Consumers with an income of less than 500 euros (25%) follow, then those who reach an amount greater than 2 thousand euros, but equal to 2 thousand (2 thousand euros) and the rest with 2 thousand or 3 thousand euros.
The pattern is still marked by parents, a couple of SICAD children (33%) live with friends or colleagues (another 7% live alone, with friends or colleagues and the remaining) are other types of situations, not specified in the report.