Report shocking

Nicotine addiction among boys on the rise, alcohol en vogue

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Julia Zarubina)

Although young people are smoking less and less, nicotine consumption is increasing rapidly. How is this possible? Due to the ever-growing trend towards e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches. Experts warn of a massive increase in the number of nicotine addicts. In addition, alcohol is still chic in Austria, and unfortunately deaths from illegal drugs are also on the rise.

Although young people are smoking fewer and fewer cigarettes, this positive trend is being partly offset by increased consumption of the "new nicotine products", reported Viennese drug expert Martin Busch on Wednesday, who heads the "Competence Center for Addiction" at Gesundheit Österreich GmbH.

Nicotine addiction among young people

• In 2002, 22 percent of 15-year-old schoolchildren smoked daily.
• In 2022, it was only four percent. However, three percent used nicotine pouches every day and two percent used e-cigarettes.

The problem is that nicotine is quickly addictive, added flavorings are suspected of being carcinogenic and the long-term consequences of high-dose nicotine consumption are difficult to assess.

A third of smokers want to quit
According to the expert, a total of 21 percent of people in Austria (aged 15 and over) smoke cigarettes every day. After 30 years of declining smoking rates among men and a decade of declining smoking rates among women, there have been no significant decreases in the past few years. However, just under a third of smokers would consider quitting. "This represents great potential for reducing the number of people affected," he said.

Alcohol on the decline, but only very slowly
In the long term, the per capita consumption of alcohol would also fall in Germany, said Busch. However, because this is happening more quickly elsewhere, Austria is increasingly becoming a country of high consumption for this "psychoactive substance", he said. 15 percent of people here consume alcohol to an extent that is harmful to their health. This is more often the case for men (19 percent) than for women (eleven percent). "After all, men die three to four times more often from alcohol-related causes than women," said Busch.

Traffic fatalities due to alcohol

The number of deaths in accidents caused by alcohol has fallen massively over the decades:

• In 1971, there were 420 fatalities.
• In 2022, there were 26 fatalities - despite the threefold increase in the number of registered motor vehicles.

Cocaine use on the rise, but heroin still dominates
For illegal drugs from cannabis to heroin, the consumption situation is stable. Around a fifth of people (aged between 15 and 64) have already tried cannabis, 90,000 have "done coke" at least once, according to the expert. There has been a significant increase in cocaine use, although "still at a very high level", he said: "However, high-risk drug use is dominated by the use of opioids such as heroin." According to estimates, 35,000 to 40,000 people in Austria are affected by this, mainly men over the age of 25 in urban centers such as Vienna.

Fatal drug overdoses on the rise, cause unclear
While the number of users is "stable", there has recently been an increase in fatal overdoses. From 2009 to 2014, the number of "directly drug-related deaths" in Austria was much lower, falling from 206 to 122. By 2023, the number had more than doubled, with 256 drug deaths occurring that year.

"The current data situation does not allow a clear interpretation of the causes," explained Busch. Part of the increase could be due to ageing users with a long history of addiction. "Although they are well integrated into the drug support system, they become multimorbid with increasing age, which lowers their tolerance level and ultimately increases their risk of death", he said: "Another explanation could be the increased purity of the substances, which increases the risk of overdoses". This is because the same quantity then contains more of the dangerous substance.