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LAST UPDATE | 3 Jun 2020
MORE THAN 50% of Irish respondents to a global survey about drugs and alcohol use say they have seen an increase in the frequency of their drinking since the Covid-19 restrictions were implemented.
For the past number of years, TheJournal.ie has partnered with the Global Drug Survey to understand people’s relationship with controlled and uncontrolled substances.
The team behind this research has today published an special edition of this study on the impact the pandemic has had on the use of alcohol and drugs.
The interim report found that out of 2,200 Irish people who took part, 54% said the frequency of their drinking had increased by some capacity.
The survey was conducted online and people took part voluntarily, meaning those who responded likely took interest in the topics being examined.
32% said it had increased a little while 22% said it had increased a lot.
This was one of the highest levels of any country surveyed and higher than the global average of 44% who said they noticed an increase.
Most participants of the survey tended to be young, have experience with illicit drugs and employed or in education, the team behind the survey said.
The median age of those who took part in Ireland was 39.
In terms of how Irish people say they are coping with the pandemic and the related restrictions, nearly 52% of respondents said they were coping “really well” which is 2% above the global average.
45% of Irish people said they were coping with some things, but not others.
Alcohol use
Nearly one-third of people globally said the number of days they drink in an average week has increased “a little” since February, before Covid-19 restrictions were in place in most countries.
Overall, 44% of people reported an increase in the frequency of their drinking while 25.5% reported a decrease.
Ireland had the highest number of respondents who said their level of binge drinking had increased, with 38% of people saying it had either increased a little or a lot since February.
Binge drinking is in this instance described as consuming five or more drinks in one single setting.
In terms of the reasons people give for an increase in alcohol consumption, the most common answer was ‘I have more time to drink’ with 43% of people choosing this response.
One-quarter of people surveyed said they were drinking more due to anxieties and stress caused by what is going on at the moment.
Overall, 42% of participants said they would like to drink less alcohol in the next 30 days.
On the other side, two-thirds of people who have seen a decrease in their drinking said this was caused by having less contact with the people they usually drink with.
Government satisfaction rating
Irish people rated their satisfaction with the leadership of the country’s government during the pandemic at eight out of ten when asked in this survey.
The global average for this was seven. People surveyed in New Zealand had the highest median level of any country, with a rating of nine out of ten.
At nearly 90%, Ireland had the second highest number of people who said they had kept a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres between themselves and those outside their household in the past 30 days to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
This is 12% higher than the global average. For self-isolation, however, Ireland was 2% below the global average as 44% of people said they had stayed at home to prevent the spread of the disease.
Illicit drug use
Ireland had the lowest rate of cannabis use, with 23% of those surveyed saying they had used it in the past year.
This compares to a high of 61% in Denmark and 58% in the Netherlands.
40% of people in Ireland who use cannabis products said they had increased their usage in some capacity, while 60% said it had stayed the same or decreased.
Ireland was among the top three users of benzodiazepines in the past 12 months, standing at 12% of those who responded to this survey.
The report on this survey said Covid-19 has had a “huge” impact on drug dealing and distribution.
“It seems that drug markets have been pretty robust and GDS predicts that following lockdown, many regions will be flooded by high purity drugs as dealers try to shift unsold stock and distribute stockpiles that had been prepared for the European summer,” it said.
Relationships
The survey also asked people about abusive relationships and changes to their relationships during the pandemic. It surveyed people in heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
In total, 18% of people said they had noticed more tension in their relationship since the pandemic.
Upwards of 15% of people said they had experienced abusive behaviours, with the highest rate of 20% seen in males with male partners.
45% of females with male partners who have experienced abusive behaviour from their partner in the last month said they had noticed an increase in threats from their partner to harm or kill them or someone close to them.
***
There is still time to take part in the full study.
The team behind the Global Drugs Survey believe in “honest conversations about alcohol and other drugs” and includes questions on whether the respondent’s alcohol and drug use has changed because of coronavirus and if those changes have had subsequent consequences.
There will also be questions about the drug market and access to services.
The survey is encrypted, all responses are anonymous and confidential and it doesn’t collect IP addresses.
The results of the full survey will be published on TheJournal.ie.
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Land of the free and the home of the brave
@Fergus O’Connor: If anti-choice activists don’t like guns then they shouldn’t get one. Simple.
@Fergus O’Connor: brave for just walking around the US crazy country
@bread of heaven: what if they don’t like bullets, can they choose for them not to be shot into their skulls?
@bread of heaven:
https://youtu.be/uq-v1TTUyhM
@bread of heaven: You must be joking? So on an article where two brave mothers who were well known and campaigners against senseless deaths from “guns” among one mode of violence are murdered in cold blood, you see fit to comment on the fact that owning a gun is a choice that would somehow what? Have saved them? THEY were murdered, had they of had a choice I’m pretty sure that’s not the ending they’d have chosen!!
All the politicians I’m sure will be out sending thoughts and prayers.
@Ed: if they were armed they could have shot back, Donald’s take on this sort of tragedy. Nothing will change because the NRA paid towards his campaign and now they own him.
Don’t forget it’s a very democrat city with very strong gun controls. So before everyone comes on blaming trump or the NRA keep that in mind.
@james s: they don’t https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555580598/fact-check-is-chicago-proof-that-gun-laws-don-t-work?t=1564569821147 .
They’ve tried to but higher powers keep pushing back on them. Also Chicago stretches to the border with Indiana which doesn’t have strict gun laws in comparison. Very easy to get weapons if you want.
@james s: Two innocent women are shot dead and the first thing you think of doing is defending trump and the NRA on an article about their murders??? Seriously?? How utterly disrespectful and disdainful of you.
@james s: you lads are nothing if not predictable.
@Darren Byrne: Chicago’s problems like most democratic control large cities is illegal firearms and the cops take a hands off approach because they don’t want to be accused of racism. There have been more deaths in Baltimore since the turn of the century Than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost one per day.
@Adrian Mac: you’re right sorry! Thoughts and prayers is that okay with you. Maybe I should light a candle as well but will sort the problem out
@james s: so what’s the solution?
If only they had guns to protect themselves…..
@Philip King ⚡️: I believe hes alluding to the fact that it’s the illegal guns are the problem
@james s: yeah the gun controls worked…
@james s: thoughts and prayers, waste of time.
@james s: sound!
@james s: care to back that BS stat up?
@Brian Mc Elwaine: why don’t you enlighten us honey???
@GrahamMManning: in 2018 372 dead in Baltimore. No where near that from war.
@james s: you mean American deaths,yes?
Cops take a hands off approach as they don’t want to be accused of racism in Chicago & Baltimore ? Bwahahahha.That is comedy gold.
Awful news, two moms out doing great work and then going to look after their own kids. So sad.R.I.P.
President Trump should do something about guns in America, it’s to easy for criminals and mental people to access guns.
@Marty from Sligo: we should ban guns here as well so we don’t end up with gun crime oh wait a minute.
@Marty from Sligo: It will always be easy for criminals to get guns unless all countries work together to not only restrict supply but also limit production. We have very strict gun laws here yet Irish criminals are armed to the teeth.
@james s: Yeah isn’t it great to not have to worry about guns. Only criminals and cops have guns, like all other civilised countries. No disgruntled lover or employee losing the head and shooting people, no kids finding guns and shooting people, no mass shootings, no driveby shootings…
@Will: I realised at a very young age, thanks to watching a BBC horizon programme about street corner gun makers in Northern Afghanistan decades ago, that gun bans are fantasy!
It featured people with basic hand tools building fully functional copies of semi auto and full auto rifles and pistols to order in the street, these guns didn’t blow up or fail, in fact when they test fired them and they functioned just like the originals….
Now given that anyone today can buy or have access to machinery such as pillar drills, lathes and other power tools, is it more or less likely that motivated people could also build fully functioning firearms today, to circumvent any gun ban?
@Marty from Sligo: it’s seems the mentally ill have easy access to the presidency too
@Marty from Sligo: Trump is OWNED by the National Rifle Association who paid millions towards his presidential campaign , he won’t do anything!
This tragic double homicide sadly demonstrates that being anti gun violence or calling for a total gun ban doesn’t make any impervious to gun violence, especially if you live somewhere that gang shootings are an everyday occurrence.
Equally if a total gun ban was intrinduced in the
@David Van-Standen: equally if a total gun ban was introduced in the USA, the same gangs would still source guns illegally and carry on business as usual, clearly the solutions to gun violence are not as simplistic as anti gun advocates consistently like to pretend in their campaign rhetoric.
@David Van-Standen: The tragedy of the USA is not that criminals get guns easily, it’s that otherwise normal people do, then become killers when they lose their job or their lover, or get nutty political views combining with mental instability. Plus all the accidents, child on child killings and impetuous suicides. If it was just the cops and criminals with guns the USA would be like anywhere else.
@Squiddley Diddley: Respectefully, that’s a pretty broad argument, that ignores statistics in the same way that most anti gun rhetoric does, instead choosing to rely on the emotive imagery of what are no doubt tragic incidents, over statistical fact and practical realities.
Firearm secure storage is definitely an area in need of being addressed through education.
Though anti gun advocates loath to admit It, even in the USA most firearms are owned by law abiding responsible people and never end up being used in any criminal act.
In gun homicides where career criminals or gang members are not responsible, the general failure in mental care is obviously a major factor in most other cases as the investigations after these mass shooting events prove.
The logical argument could be made, that the way to address the problem of these acts is not to ban guns from society, also removing them from the lawabiding majority, but to make mental health care more accessible to all…
@David Van-Standen: It seems lots of focussing on emotive imagery comes from the NRA types, while the other side has the ‘statistical facts and practical realities’. The statistics for gun deaths that compare the US to other developed countries are quite damning, as I’m sure you know.
@Squiddley Diddley:
Part one:
In 2018 40,000 people died in the USA in gun related deaths, these figures include 1165 people shot by law enforcement, 90 percent of which were judged to be justifiable.
The figures for criminals justifiable shot by armed citizens in self defense are not specified.
Of the 40,000 gun related deaths 60% are suicides, once again the lack of available mental health care is statistically corroborated!
Part two:
40,000 people dead is a lot of people and no doubt a personal tragedy for Individual families regardless of the circumstances, but in a country with population of over 327 million people it’s not that much statistically, for example in the USA 2018, 40,231 people died in car accidents, 36,338 doed in accidental falls.
So generally in the USA you are statistically, equally likely to die from a fall or in a car accident as from a gun shot, but if you are not suffering from mental health issues or otherwise suicidal, then you are statistically more likely to die in a car accident or fall than to be shot…
@David Van-Standen: Still refusing to compare the US with other developed countries. Deliberately avoiding that because you know how bad the facts are.
@David Van-Standen: Roughly speaking, gun deaths per year per 100,000 people, Australia 1, Canada 2, USA 20.
@Squiddley Diddley: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
@Squiddley Diddley: Amazing that he hasn’t put up the statistics of people that are seriously wounded by guns every year ..
@Squiddley Diddley: The lack of access to mental health care is still the primary factor in 60% of those gun related deaths as the result of suicide in the USA.
Nobody can dispute that the statistics are higher in the USA, least of all me who clearly stated them, but they are not as high as this figure you have just presented as factual data.
The Wikipedia figure you quote of 20 people per 100,000 in the USA is attributed to the CDC as it’s source, this conflicts with the actual CDC figure of 4.5 per 100,000 people killed by assault homicide discharge of firearms.
So the actual figure has been inflated on Wikipedia, for an audience that either can’t be bothered to look past sound bites or have already made up their minds and are just seeking validation rather than factual data.
@David Van-Standen: 20 per 100 thousand was ‘roughly speaking”, its actually 19 on those figures, which are for total gun deaths. Your 4.5 for ‘assault homicide’ does not include gun-handling accidents, accidental shootings, police shootings or suicide I take it. So why use that figure? You prefer an audience to be bamboozled by your irrelevant comparisons to motor accidents and twisted statistics? Face it, the US has a serious problem the rest of us don’t have. Time to address it.
@Squiddley Diddley: I apologise, if the statistics I used about actual gun related murders are too specific to the subject at hand, rather than the broad nonspecific ones you appear to prefer to support your argument.
If you can’t see for yourself, that logically firearms accidents can be addressed through increased security and education and that the suicides which account for two thirds of all deaths using firearms, can best be prevented with freely available mental health care instead of a ban on firearms, then what hope do I have of convincing you otherwise….
CHI-RAQ
@Gus: weak
Congress should hang their heads in shame, utter disregard for human life
Nice clear concise headline you have there journal *eyeroll*
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