Global Drug Survey 2019 in the media

[S.J.B.]

Britons get drunk more often than 35 other nations, survey finds
Sarah Marsh
The Guardian
May 15th, 2019

Drinkers in the UK get drunk more than any other nation in the world, findings from a global survey suggest.

Britons reported getting drunk an average of 51.1 times in a 12-month period – almost once a week – the report featuring 36 countries found.

On average, respondents said they got drunk 33 times in the last year. This number was 50 times in the US and 48 times in Canada. The rate was much lower in countries such as Chile, where they got drunk 16 times a year.

The Global Drug Survey, of more than 120,000 substance-users worldwide, also found that England has the highest rate of people having tried cocaine in the world.

In England, 74% of participants reported having used cocaine at some point in their lives, compared with 43% globally. Use of the drug in the past year among people from England who responded went up from 43% in 2018’s survey to 64% this year.

Read the full story here.

 

[S.J.B.]

Canada ranks second in the world for cocaine use (and feeling conflicted about it): Report
Bobby Hristova
National Post
May 16th, 2019

Canadians do cocaine and “totally” trust their dealers more than most other countries, according to a giant new report on global drug use.

The Global Drug Survey 2019, led by Dr. Adam Winstock and his team in London, surveyed more than 130,000 people across 36 countries.

Researchers asked 1,960 Canadians how many days they used cocaine in the last 12 months.

Canada had the second-highest median number of days with 10 — which is almost once a month and close to double the global answer of six days a year. Canadians reported using half a gram of cocaine, which matches the average worldwide.

“It’s not a surprise,” said Susan Bondy, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “We sit high for drug and alcohol use in a lot of these studies.”

Read the full story here.

 

[S.J.B.]

It's being glossed over in these stories, but this survey is not at all representative of the general population, and doesn't attempt to be. The survey respondents are, largely, people who consider themselves drug users, so the numbers are skewed much higher than in the general population.