Abstract
Drug use increased in the 1990s also in Finland. The article describes the results of a postal questionnaire survey in Finland in autumn 2002. The population of the survey consisted of Finnish people aged 15–69.
A total of 2,541 persons took part in the survey, giving a response rate of 63 per cent. This can be considered reasonably high. A comparison of the results with the figures produced by surveys conducted in the same way in 1992, 1996 and 1998 provides a good indication of how the situation has developed over the past ten years.
In the 2002 survey, 12 per cent of the respondents said they had tried or used an illicit substance at some point in their life. The majority reported that this had happened one year ago or earlier. Three per cent reported drug use during the past 12 months, one per cent that they had used drugs during the past 30 days. A comparison with earlier studies reveals trends in both directions. The numbers who indicated that they had sometimes tried or used drugs have increased, over the past four years particularly among women. The figures describing recent use in 2002 do not seem to have changed since 1998.
The sharpest increase in the numbers trying drugs was seen in the age group 20–29. In 2002, around one in three men and around one in four women in this age group reported having tried cannabis at some stage in their life. In the age group under 40 the use of amphetamine and extacy also showed a statistically significant increase. The figures describing non-medicinal use of medical substances had also increased. In the metropolitan Helsinki region and in larger cities with a population of more than 100,000, drug use was more common than elsewhere in the country.
The analysis presented in this article shows that the second drug wave during the 1990s in Finland is a generational phenomenon. The new drug users and experimenters come from age groups who were born in the 1970s and 1980s. It seems that the new party culture has, in accordance with international trends, arrived in Finland and the use of stimulants that is associated with nightlife have gained an increasingly firm footing in our country.