Prescription drugs passed around families lie behind high rates of abuse across the EU, researchers warned today.
Abusers frequently borrow or take opioids and sedatives from relatives and friends, according to the study.
Researchers called for continent-wide collaborations to tackle the problem.
According to the report in BMC Psychiatry Germany has the lowest rate of abuse while Spain, Sweden and the UK have high rates of abuse of prescription drugs.
The findings come from an analysis of 20,000 adults and 2,000 teenagers whose data was collected by the European Union Medicine Study.
Researchers found that the internet was the least common way used to obtain the drugs.
Although many abusers were people who had once been prescribed a pain reliever, there were also high rates of poly-drug use.
About 52% of those using prescription stimulants also used illicit drugs as did 32% of opioid users and 28% of those using sedatives.
Researcher Dr Scott Novak said: "This is the first comparative study of prescription drug abuse in the European Union.
"Previously it was thought that the prescription drug epidemic was limited to the United States, but this study shows that the epidemic extends well beyond the US."
He added: "While the lifetime rates were not as high as in the US – 20% for those aged 12 years and over compared to between 7% and 13% in the EU – the past-year rates were only slightly lower. This suggests that the EU may be catching up to the United States for some substances, like opioid pain relievers."
Nonmedical Use of Prescription Drugs in the European Union BMC Psychiatry 4 August 2016; doi: 10.1186/s12888-016-0909-3 [abstract]
Leave a Reply