Ecstasy and cocaine use peaks at Antwerp students

Antwerp Antwerp students swallowing, snorting and smoking more drugs than the average Flemish student. That is the conclusion from a sample that the Antwerp studentenblad ‘Straddle’ in a small thousand students loved. Especially the party drugs ecstasy and cocaine peaks.

‘Cross’ and sent via the platform ‘Blackboard’, a questionnaire about drug and alcohol use to the students of the UAntwerpen. That resulted in 961 responses. All faculties are well represented, the geslachtsverdeling is representative. Already recognize the authors of the survey, one in twenty students is not enough to make hard decisions to do.

Ecstasy and cocaine use

The results are compared with a study from 2017 UA-researcher Guido Van Hal in less than 36.000 students from all over Flanders. The differences with the Antwerp drug use are large. Forty percent of Flemish students used all of once cannabis, in Antwerp, it adds up to 52 percent. The UA student appears to be in ratio is even more switched on party drugs: 14% swallowed all of ecstasy, 10 per cent snorted cocaine. The Flemish figures are respectively 7 and 5 percent, half so.

Drugs are the most popular in the faculties of Social Sciences and Applied Engineering. The number of users, there is slightly above 60 percent. The ‘best’ students we find in Medicine, Pharmacy and Veterinary medicine with a good 40 percent.

Verslavingspsychiater Geert Dom (UAntwerpen) adds a rider to the figures. He points out in ‘Cross’ on the questionnaire as possible, a group has sued more concerned with drugs. The survey also goes out to students, what the threshold lowers to speak freely. On the other hand, Antwerp is a city with many great nightclubs and with a large supply of cocaine.

Galabal

Peter De Meyer, spokesman of the UAntwerpen, do not want too much to make statements about the figures. “We assume that there are no drugs during the lessons are used. We have rules on the campus, but it is more difficult to act against the individual use outside of the campus. After the Flemish research we have pointed to the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Currently, there is no awareness. And if the scuppers leak, such as the galabal of student Sofia in november that the police stopped, we act. The rector has Sofia then suspended until the end of the academic year. Students who have problems with drugs and alcohol, can contact the student psychologist.”