Swiss schoolchildren leave most of their European counterparts lagging behind when it comes to extracurricular activities such as smoking cannabis and getting drunk.<\/p>\n
According to a survey of 35 countries, they are the continent\u2019s heaviest dope smokers and among the worst offenders for binge drinking.
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Key Facts:<\/span><\/p>\n Figures for Swiss 13-year-olds:<\/p>\n 8.5% smoke cigarettes daily. The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Switzerland found that 80 per cent of 15-year-olds drank regularly \u2013 despite being underage. More than half of the 16-year-olds questioned said they went binge drinking at least once a month. While previous studies have shown that Swiss teenagers are big on dope smoking, the study\u2019s authors said they were taken aback by some of the findings relating to alcohol consumption.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere were many surprises,\u201d said Gerhard Gmel, co-director for research at the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Addiction, who led the study. \u201cImagine that about 50 per cent of 16-year-olds binge at least once a month. I found this was a very high prevalence.\u201d \u201cAnother very surprising finding for us was that spirit and alcopop consumption seems to be very high among young people. We thought it was mainly beer and wine that were consumed by adolescents.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Tax on alcopops<\/span><\/p>\n Alarmed by the rise in binge drinking among teenagers, the government raised the tax on alcopops in February this year. Gmel said it was too early to say whether this was having any effect on drinking habits, but he stressed that other measures were needed.Among them was better enforcement of existing regulations banning the sale of alcohol to minors.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to previous studies, 90 per cent of 15-year-olds say it is either \u201cvery easy\u201d or \u201crelatively easy\u201d to buy beer in Switzerland. Two-thirds of them say they have no problems getting their hands on spirits. \u201cIt\u2019s too easy to get alcohol in Switzerland,\u201d Gmel told swissinfo. \u201cThe fact that 80 per cent of young people drink has to do with our culture in Switzerland. It\u2019s accepted to drink alcohol and I think the tolerance, even towards binge drinking, is too high in Switzerland.\u201d \u201cI think we have good measures and legal regulations but they are not enforced enough \u2013 that\u2019s a problem.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 7,000 questioned<\/span><\/p>\n Gmel and his team interviewed around 7,000 schoolchildren aged between 13 and 16.They found that cigarette smoking among teenagers was continuing to rise despite frequent prevention campaigns. Almost a quarter of 16-year-olds said they smoked every day.\u201cThere\u2019s much international research going on about media campaigns, and they usually show that they are not very effective,\u201d said Gmel.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNevertheless these campaigns are needed to really change the attitudes of the population, but they are only fruitful if they are accompanied by structural measures such as regulations on the selling of alcohol and tobacco.\u201d The Federal Health Office, which published the findings on Friday, said it was the first time Switzerland had participated in the Europe-wide survey. Spokeswoman Sandra Meier said the office intended to repeat the study in four years\u2019 time as long as funds were available.\u00a0<\/p>\n Swiss schoolchildren leave most of their European counterparts lagging behind when it comes to extracurricular activities such as smoking cannabis and getting drunk. According to a survey of 35 countries, they are the continent\u2019s heaviest dope smokers and among the worst offenders for binge drinking. \u00a0 Key Facts: Figures for Swiss 13-year-olds: 8.5% smoke cigarettes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMore than 50% drink alcohol at least once a month.
\n20% have smoked a joint.<\/p>\n