Prague, Oct 17 (CTK) – The Czech Republic reported the lowest number of lethal drug overdose cases per 100,000 inhabitants out of the EU member states in 2015, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) director Alexis Goosdeel and Czech anti-drug coordinator Jindrich Voboril said on Tuesday.
Forty-four people died of drug overdose in the Czech Republic with the population of 10.5 million two years ago, while in the whole EU it was 7,585, they told reporters.
“The number of cases of overdose by illegal drugs is up to seven times lower than in the case of alcohol. Consequently, our approach has been successful in the sphere of illegal drugs,” Voboril said.
The share of addicts taking drugs intravenously who are infected with HIV and hepatitis C is also low in the Czech Republic compared with other countries.
The Czech Republic has succeeded in lowering the number of lethal drug overdose cases also thanks to the application of the harm reduction principle, that is the elimination of negative consequences of drug use, Goosdeel said.
The measures include a free exchange of syringes in the Czech Republic where more than 6.4 million of them were distributed in 2015, as well as substitution therapy in which a hazardous drug, for instance, heroin, is replaced with a less harmful product, such as methadone.
Only a half of the EU countries include legal drugs, such a tobacco and alcohol, or possibly even gambling, into their drug or addiction strategies.
“We lead the rankings in the number of risk users of legal drugs mainly in smoking and alcohol consumption among children and youths,” Voboril added.
The EMCDDA is collecting data on anti-drug policies and drug users in all EU countries.
This comparison has helped some countries modify their preventive programmes to be more efficient, Voboril said.
Compared with the EU average, the Czech Republic has a lower share of cocaine users, but higher in the case of amphetamine (pervitin) and MDMA, such as ecstasy.
The share of marijuana users among adults under 34 who tried it in the past year in the Czech Republic is almost 5 percent higher than the European average.
