THE Balearics consumes four times as much cannabis on a daily basis than the rest of Spain.
The alarming statement was made yesterday by Gonzalo Robles, central government delegate on the National Drugs Plan, who also stated that the daily use of cocaine and ecstasy in the region is twice the national average.
The central government's drug tzar believes that the principal reason for the Balearics' high level of drug use is because the region is a predominantly tourist destination. Robles, in Palma to give a conference, organised by Palma City Council and the Flassaders Social centre, on combating drug addicting in tourist resorts, said that the figures are the results of an extensive house-to-house survey of 16 to 65 year-olds carried out in 2001. The results show that, in the Balearics, six per cent of the population smoke cannabis on a daily basis, which is nearly four times the national average if 1.6 per cent. The survey results also reveal that nearly 40 per cent of the population have smoked cannabis on at least one occasion in the Balearics, again higher than the national average of 24.4. per cent. 10.4 per cent of people have also experimented with cocaine at some point, again, double the national average, along with the 10.5 per cent of the local population which has tried ecstasy in contrast to the national average of 4.2 per cent. With regards to the consumption of alcohol, there is however little difference in habits between the Balearics and the rest of the country.
17.7 per cent of the Balearic population consume alcohol on a daily basis, compared to 14.3 nation wide.
Robles said that the Balearics's high dependency on tourism means that, by the nature of the industry, the region has an unusually high number of bars and clubs and a thriving entertainment industry, hence the risks of drug use are much higher because nowadays, it's associated with the industry, Robles said. He went on to urge the local government to take more action and to co-operate more with central government in Madrid and the National Drugs Plan to combat rising drug abuse in the Balearics.