Czech teenagers increasingly drink alcohol - ESPAD study

In 1995, some 14 percent of the teenagers got drunk at least three times a month, but last year, it was one-fifth of them, the report said.

Some 15 percent of them drank beer and liquor at least six times in the past month.

On the other hand, the number of teenagers with an experience with marihuana has fallen for the first time in the past years. The attitude to cigarettes has not changed. One-fourth of those examined smoke daily, the study said.

ESPAD is the biggest European study on the use of legal and illegal drugs by sixteen-year teenagers. It was held for the first time in 1995 and it is repeated once in four years.

Last year, it covered 36 countries. In the Czech Republic, it examined 3913 pupils from the ninth grade of the elementary school and the first grade of the secondary school from 360 schools.

Some 98 percent said they had already tried alcohol in their lives.

One half of girls and two-thirds of boys consumed it at least 20 times. In the past month, four out of five of them drank it.

Roughly 26 percent of the youths drank beer more than six times in the past 30 days. This was 5 percent more than in 2007 and 8 percent more than in 1995.

Beer is mainly drunk by boys. Some 37 percent of them and only 16 percent of girls drink more than six times a month. The girls' proportion has more than doubled since 1995.

Wine is regularly drunk by over 9 percent of the examined teenagers, soft drinks with alcohol by some 10 percent.

Liquor is drunk by over 15 percent of the teenagers at least six times a month.

Over 21 percent of the sixteen-year-old teenagers, 27 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls, respectively, were drunk at least three times in the past month. In 1995, it was one-fifth of boys and some 7 percent of girls.

The sixteen-year-old teenagers have no problem when getting alcohol, study writes.

An increasing number of them buy it in shops. In 2003, some two-fifths of them did so, but last year as many as 61 percent.

Compared with previous surveys, the proportion of those using illegal drugs has slightly fallen. The proportion of those who have tried marihuana or hashish stood at 42 percent in 2011, down from 45 percent in 2007.

But still the Czech teenagers were the first in Europe in this respect, the study says.

One-fourth of them smoke daily cigarettes. Every twelfth sixteen-year teenager in the Czech Republic is a heavy smoker, consuming at least 11 cigarettes a day, the survey has found.

Author: ČTK
www.ctk.cz