At least one in five Croatians have used illegal drugs at least once in their lifetime, a recent study commissioned by the Health Ministry said, with cannabis being the most commonly used substance.

The study, presented in Parliament on Friday during a debate on the results of the national drug prevention plan in 2017, also said that the number of Croatians treated for addiction rose in 2017.

“In 2017, a total of 7,157 people were treated for drug abuse by the health care system, or slightly up by 0.7 percent, from 2016,” said Health Ministry’s senior official Tomislav Dulibic, who presented the report.

Around 80 percent of the patients treated used opiates like strong poppy-based painkillers, whereas the remaining 20 percent received help to treat use of other psychoactive substances, he said.

Programmes to treat addiction in long time users involved 957 patients in 2017, which was 24 percent up from 2016.

During the debate, MP Ines Strenja (Most) talked about the problem of alcoholism and warned that Croatians consume some 12.8 litres of pure alcohol per capita per year, which, she said is among highest rates in Europe.

Strenja, who chairs the Parliament’s health care and social policy committee, said that her party plans to propose a bill banning the sale of alcohol at gas stations and limiting stores to sell alcohol by 10 pm at the latest, regardless of their working hours.

“Youths who start using alcohol on a daily basis at 15 or 16 will eventually drop out of school, they will turn to crime, and some of them are young girls who will have unwanted pregnancies,” Strenja said, and added that “many of them have witnessed alcohol to be seen as a normal thing in the families they raised them, and that’s something that we need to put in more effort in combating.”

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