Drug info - Spain Tops World in Proportion of Cocaine Users

[jholmes800]

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Spain overtook the U.S. as the country with the highest proportion of cocaine users as the Iberian nation's economic growth made the drug more affordable.
Three percent of Spaniards aged between 15 and 64 had cocaine over the past year, the government said in a report last week. That beats the U.S. for the first time and is the highest among countries that have reliable statistics, said Thomas Pietschmann, an analyst at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna.
Cocaine, once a vice of the rich, is now affordable for more people in Spain. The country's economy, which grew at an annual rate of 3.8 percent in the third quarter, is set to expand faster than the euro area for a 12th year in 2006. Spain is also Europe's main entry for the drug because of ties with cocaine-producing former colonies such as Colombia.
``For the past decade we have seen demand for cocaine addiction treatments increase every year,'' said Lino Salas, spokesman for Proyecto Hombre, Spain's largest non-for-profit drug-treatment. ``This is a growing problem.''
At 60 euros a gram (0.035 ounce), or as little as 5 euros a line, even young people can afford it.
Spain's cocaine consumption increased from 2.7 percent in 2003, the government said. For the U.S., consumption over the past year among 15- to 64-year-olds stood at 2.8 percent in 2005, Pietschmann said.
Miss the Train
Consumption among adolescents, 14 to 18, quadrupled to 7.2 percent in the 10 years through 2004, according to Spain's Health Ministry. Spain has declared fighting cocaine consumption a ``priority,'' according to the statement released last week.
The Spanish Health Ministry's report was drawn from 27,934 interviews conducted between November 2005 and April 2006.
Ten percent to 15 percent of cocaine users become addicted and the risk of a heart attack rises 24-fold for cocaine users, the Health Ministry says.
The government this month extended an October advertising campaign on the dangers of drugs. Its theme: ``Drugs: It's better not to catch some trains.'' TV ads showed teenagers snorting cocaine and smoking cannabis. The sound of snorting a line and exhaling smoke is repeated at a quickening pace, likening it to an accelerating train.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=ahpsW8lJ7FIY