Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

This paper explores different approaches to quantify the human costs related to drug use.

The data come from a representative survey of 3092 respondents above the age of 18 in four Nordic capitals: Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo and Stockholm.

The results show that in most Nordic capitals more than half of the respondents at some time have known and worried about the drug use of somebody they know personally. Moreover, while the average reported harm was about 2 on a scale from 0 to 10, a significant minority (10%) of those knowing drug users indicated that the harm was above 5.

Many persons have at some time personally known somebody who uses drugs. This causes significant human harm and should be included in the estimate of the social cost of illegal drugs. These results are relevant in the debate on the size of the drug problem as well as for targeting groups that experience the highest costs.

This study compared data quality and response rates for the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) in a web-based versus in a paper-and-pencil format survey.

Subjects were randomised to one of two parallel samples, one web-based and the other paper-based. Data were collected during 2009.

The web-based format yielded a lower response rate compared to the paper version (26.2% vs. 53.6%), internal consistency was quite similar (0.82 vs. 0.77), while the mean AUDIT scores were higher in the web-based format for both men and women.

Future studies should focus on methods for combining different administration methods in order to maximize response rates.

The article focuses on the discourse on intoxication and its changes among young women in Finland. According to surveys, drinking among Finnish women has been rising for decades. Especially young women have been in the front line in the raise of drinking and intoxication-oriented drinking. However, statistics are not able to explain the factors behind this change. What has happened to women's attitudes and connotations related to binge drinking during the past decades? How do young women in their twenties perceive being drunk and how has the description of their relationship to this condition changed over the last 20 years?

To explore these questions, the present article compares interview materials concerning drinking collected among young adults in 1985 and 2005/2007. The article analyses how young women identify themselves with intoxication in these periods and how the way in which women describe this relationship has changed in the meantime.

The greatest change has to do with how young women regard drunkenness while presenting themselves. Whereas in the 1985 material young women distanced themselves from binge drinking, 20 years later they identify themselves strongly with it. The analysis shows that this development illustrares that both the significance of drunkenness in itself and the way in which drinking-related self-expression has changed.

The results relate to the changes in Finnish drinking culture which have been more pronounced in the case of women than men as well as the change of acceptable and desirable images of femininity.