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OVER HALF OF people have been drinking more frequently since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new survey has found.
A further 55% of us want to drink less in the coming month, while there’s also been an increase in people drinking alone since March.
The latest edition of the Global Drugs Survey included 55,811 responses from over 11 countries, including 4,158 responses from people in Ireland.
Those aged under 25 accounted for 5% of the study in Ireland, 23% of respondents were aged 25-34, 34% were aged 35-44 and 38% were aged 45 or over.
Respondents were asked a variety of questions, such as how they were coping with Covid, how they rated the government’s leadership during the crisis, and how their relationship with drugs and alcohol changed – if at all – during the pandemic.
According to the survey, 26% of people have drank alcohol between six and 10 days in the past month. A further 15% said they’d drank alcohol for 11-15 days, 12% said 16-20 days, 14% said 21-29 days and 6% said they had drank every day.
Two in four people (40%) said they would drink 1-2 standard drinks on a day in which they drank. One standard drink is a half pint of beer or stout, a small glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits.
A further 28% said they would drink 3 or 4 standard drinks on a day when they drank while 9% said they’d drink 10 or more standard drinks.
When asked about the frequency of drinking during Covid-19, 52% of people said that they’d increased the number of days in which they drank by a little (30%) or a lot (22%). One in four (24%) said the frequency of their drinking has stayed the same.
When asked if they were starting to drink earlier in the day now compared to before Covid-19, 35% of people said they were while 56% said they wanted to drink less in the next 30 days.
For those who have increased their drinking, respondents gave a variety of reasons for why they had done so.
Just under a third (31%) said the increase was only slight and not a big deal, but 40% said they’d increased their drinking because they had more time to drink while around 20% said they’d done so because they felt more lonely or depressed.
A further 30% of people who’d increased their drinking said they’d done so partly as a reward for coping with what’s going on.
For those who are drinking less, a majority (55%) said they were doing so because they had less contact with people who they usually drink with.
When it came to drinking alcohol alone, 44% said they did it more often since the start of the pandemic.
Of the over 4,000 people surveyed in Ireland, around 22% (927 people) reported using THC-containing cannabis products. Of those who used cannabis, 39% said they had done so more frequently during the pandemic.
Of the 622 people who had done cocaine, however, almost half (47%) said they were doing it less frequently now.
Respondents in Ireland ranked the highest among the rest of countries when asked if they thought the pandemic had led to a decreased availability of illegal drugs. 74% of respondents in Ireland felt it had, compared to 55% in the UK, 48% in the US and 35% in the Netherlands.
Overall, 52% of all those surveyed said they were coping “really well” with changes related to the Covid-19 pandemic. A further 45% said they were coping with some things not all while 3% said they were not coping well at all.
When asked to rate their satisfaction with the government’s leadership during the pandemic out of 10, an 8/10 rating was highest on 29%. 7% of people gave the government 5/10 and another 7% gave it 6/10. 14% gave the government 10/10.
Internationally, respondents in New Zealand scored their government the highest with 67% rating it a 9 or a 10. In Brazil, 70% of respondents gave a 0/10 while 42% of respondents in the US gave a 0 or 1 rating.
Those behind the Global Drugs Survey, however, emphasised that their data is from a non-probability sample and their findings are not represented of the wider population.
It added: “The majority of our participants tend to be young, experienced with the use of illicit drugs, and employed or in education. We have included questions that are relevant to marginalised and vulnerable groups of people who use drugs, yet these groups are largely underrepresented online.”
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 that research work launched a special edition for Covid-19.
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ask the dairy farmers in ballyhea or anywhere else what they think of europe
Ah sure they have no money,
they did have, but now Europe has decided not to support them
echoes of our own sugar beet factories….. remember them?
The economists have all said greece cannot repay over 300bln of debt with a debt to gdp of 177%, 26% unemployment, 50+% unemployment 18-25yr olds. Doesnt matter what cuts are made. Pure maths. German banks have €87BLN exposure to greece, that’s all they want. In the absence of an elected European President Merkel is calling the shots, and she is a hardliner.
pls red thumb my comment as it is taken out of context
poor famers. …sure god help us..
We tax payers seem to subsidize everybody but our selves.Ireland is a mess to be honest.http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/ireland.
Just bought a French car today. Wouldn’t touch a German car. Talk with ur feet.
Should have kept the punt, Ireland should have never joined without the brits joining ad well. I miss our money. Real money.
The euro is 15yrs old or thereabouts. Within eight years it created numerous property bubbles through Europe, it brought financial institutions that had been trading for 150yrs + to its knees. There is a litany of bailed out banks and now a country using the currency has defaulted on its repayments.
Can anymore remember what the euro was actually for? What was the purpose of the euro project?
I don’t agree. Leave aside your personal finances, I remember working in a factory and because we were a tiny economy 95% of raw material was imported from other countries in the now eurozone, and finished products exported to. This meant rakes of other countries exchange rates to deal with up and down and all over the shop. My point is it has to make business easier, and I thin that is particularly important for a small country like Ireland. There are disadvantages too of course, but don’t make out like there are no advantages.
That is one advantage. But hardly justifies bringing the financial systems of member states to the brink of collapse.
its why the eu was set up in the first place, make trade easier, now we have nations on their knee’s, their citizens digging in bins for food, their focus being on the banks….
Hopefully after a difficult couple of years the euro system can be tweaked to better handle the different economies. I’m no expert on all the financial stuff, but I do think it is important for trade, and we have a lot of jobs relying on that.
That in essence is the dream, but in welding dynamically diverse economies in to one homogenous zone, would either create a stitch and paste Frankenstein monster, or as they do in the U.S. there is the requirement whereby stronger states support the weaker ones – always. That can only come from Federalisation, but Eurocrats know there isn’t the stomach for that within nations, even the ex – soviets the new kids in the Euro don’t want that, same as from Germany – but the Eurocrats still pressed ahead, result – equal misery around. But – if you think of it, a massive currency crisis serves a purpose. It will scare everyone into accepting federalization as the end game – Vote YES for federalization, it will be good for jobs ! erh . . . .
Stephen. I think you’re stretching things just a bit in trying to suggest that the euro was responsible for the global financial crisis. The main reason that happened was that over 20 years the banking industry lobbied hard for less and less regulation. The contagion started in the U.S. and there is no doubt that the structural weaknesses in the euro were a contributor to the spreading of the problem but there would have been a collapse even if the euro had never happened.
But what’s the solution, go back to our own individual currencies? I think we’d be screwed.
Let’s get one thing straight here, this isn’t about Europe, it’s about Germany. The earlier Greek debt proposals went before the GERMAN parliament for consideration NOT the European one. The Germans tried twice to take over Europe by force, they have simply now done it without the bloodshed. It was mostly German banks who were bailed out by Ireland. They gambled, lost, got bailed out and are now earning interest on it. I wonder could I do that to Paddy Power every time I lose on the horses?? Fair play to Greece they stood up to bullies and should be commended by Ireland , shame our gutless politicians didn’t do the same
Germany has very convenient amnesia about all their debt that was written off by the rest of Europe after WW2; including Greece, now they want to play hard ball!
Do you think they got that write down behaving like the Greek govt have done over the past couple of months?
Given your objections to the Germans Paul, can we take it that in principle you would support paying them back all of the money they have pumped into Ireland over the past 40 years in EU subsidies? And the French and British while you are at it? Come down out of your Ivory tower and get into the real world.
Go away outta that John Burke, you just miss the Brits.
That is debatable. If our own central bank was able to set interest rates for Ireland, then arguably, any resultant crash would have been a lot less muted – or the ‘soft-landing’ as was touted at the time.
Kevin. Cop on will you. The EU was set up for the right reasons and supported smaller countries in trying to maintain a level playing field. But it has now become the domain of the Germans and French in particular in pushing their agendas and control over these same smaller countries. Look at the way Lisbon was pushed on us twice cos they didn’t like our answer the 1st time. Bullying plain and simple and it’s being the same since. Try looking into the news instead of spoon fed crap you seem to take your word from
Paul. The EU has and always will be controlled by the big countries and why shouldn’t it be, they finance it. That’s called the real world. Ireland has been a happy net beneficiary of EU subsidies for forty years and membership of the EU has been the key driver behind our economic development over that period and Germany, France and Britain have funded that. The ECB screwed us in the bailout (IMF were not partners in that as many think) that’s for sure but sometimes you have to pay the piper.
Kevin while I agree with most of what you are saying, the still same point is the Germans are now trying to use this to control the affairs in the other sovereign states. As an earlier post said, they have very short memories when they had substantial debt write off after WW2 so they could get back on their feet. As I stated previously we have benefitted greatly from EU but I do believe that it is now becoming a domain of larger powers exerting their control over smaller nations. We were bullied into a bailout which is becoming ever more apparent by each passing day of the banking enquiry and so this debt should not have being put onto Irish people. Greece has to initiate reforms to come into line but at least they are fighting for their people like politicians not like the gutless shower in DE here.
The notion that we would be screwed if we went back to our own currency does not wash. There are still nine countries in the EU who still don’t use the euro and at least four of them have public policy never to give up their own currency. Sweden and Denmark are notable as so much of their trade is with Germany.
The euro, as it currently stands, has failed. It’s record over such a short period of time is abysmal. It was supposed to bring stability, but has completely de-stabilised several members economies.
I want it to work, but it’s clear now, that it does not.
They should have put it to a referendum to let the people decide if we wanted the euro instead of the punt. This was greedy politicians and bankers deciding over our heads the fate of the country. They obviously didn’t concern themselves about the reasons the UK and Denmark stayed out that now our politicians and bankers chickens have come home to roost.
I am sure that one of the reasons we joined the euro was to facilitate American businesses wanting to get their feet into Europe. Might have served well in the short term but they have used Ireland as a pawn in a game of corporate influence over Irish governments who pretend that the employment potential is more important than that of clearing our debts. Even with Greece we can see that proposals aimed at bringing about stability include corporation tax levels aimed at bringing down the countries debts, Ireland has failed in this respect, making this country a tax haven for the rich while leaving ordinary people in a worse off situation. As I tell my kids living in NZ and Aus they should stay there if they want to make a decent life for themselves. Ireland is the knackers yard of Europe.
All countries are different though. Some if those countries have traditional indigenous industries, which we don’t. They are on the European mainland, which we aren’t. We are an island off an island off the European mainland. We have a lot of multinationals based here who I’m sure welcome the stability the single currency brings with the destination markets.
Malvolio – you are right in what you say but what is the point in having these multinationals if they are not paying their taxes. Irelands agriculture has a reputation for quality and diversification far better than most other countries in Europe, everything we produce comes up to the highest international standards and could largely dissapear if Europe signs up to trade deals with the US. The fact is that Americans do not rate quality and will not pay the kind of prices we currently get from the UK and Germany.
When the door is slammed in our face we might wake up to learning where the mistakes are being made.
Chris, if they’re building factories and using services, they’re spending money in ireland, plus the jobs of all the people working in those factories, and the money they make and spend. I understand the points about ttip, but also you have to be realistic, ireland will not stop ttip. We can only try affect the negotiations as much as possible.
I never liked that Euro anyway. We spend more and get less.
Bring back the Punt
In fairness when we had it I can never remember calling it the Punt………….
Well I was that weirdo who called it by its real name only to be told its called the pound even tho it said punt right on it, go figure.
Hi Glenard.
Ever hear of inflation and time value of money?
Mk76 loves cronyism and corruption typical fg
To quote Oddball in Kelly’s Heros
“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”
This country’s online conversations are a becoming swirling mass of negativity, bitching, backbiting, personal attacks on ordinary people. So I’m off to enjoy the day and hopefully the next Journal article I read will be full of hope humour wit and happiness.
Well said Desmodromic there are too many whingers around here…
A dose of collective amnesia will sort that and other things out
Whadda you men Chris? You calling me a moany auld whinger who hates every political party even a fraction from the extreme left? Or a brain washed shinner who is stuck in the one blinkered mode of The shinners can do no wrong ever ever and Love everyone (until they get into power) Is that what you are saying Chris??????
I’M OFF TO WATCH TED 2 !
Alan, I would make do with a bit of sunshine at the moment…
Its raining now desmodromic thanks for that rant.Back to bitching i suppose.
on behalf of me, thank you ballyhea
It’s not really fair to lump all of Ballyhea in with these few protesters. It’s a fine rural dairy farming community that has been happily accepting European farm payments for decades and hopefully will continue to do so long into the future
You’re thanking someone on behalf of yourself? Bit schitzo isn’t it?
in my world a schitzo is someone who says one thing and does another, eg. Kenny tells Greece we never raised tax’s to pay the bondholders
sorry, got schitzo and liar mixed up!
Hah croc… I was thinking the same thing.
‘And so should Ireland’ we love trying to link ourselves to every story of the day no matter how tenuous the link…….
But the entire article is about Ireland, specifically the ballyhae says no campaign. I suspect you didn’t read it.
Oh well if a bunch of gombeens from Cork think that, that’s good enough for me….
Got as far as the fourth paragraph and kind of nodded off……….
And then you woke back up to post a comment?
Indeed, it’s a talent…….
Sure it gets them out of the house for a few hours
At least they got a free holiday out of it
unofficial reports says the group made a diplomatic stop off at an Amsterdam café as it was “just down the road bai” before flying home
Another moronic group wanting us to be like Greece, walking around waving Greek flags in “solidarity”.
Maybe it would be a good thing if we were like Greece. At least they’d be a reason for all the moaning and begrudgery on these forums.
Fair play to them, they make more sense than your pro austerity German flag waving moronic groups.
It;s getting too complicated all this unsustainable debt and trying to get Greece to get it “sustainable ..”
Hi Clive. What German flag waving or are you just being a silly billy?
Ask yourself whether you’d rather be living in Ireland or Greece at the moment Clive.
I’d rather be living in Ireland thanks, I’m not great with the sun. Either way I’ll be contributing to German bankers profits for the next 40 years.
I didn’t realise the Ivory Coast was in the Euro??
All of Francophone West and Central Africa on the CFA Franc is on the Euro through the Link to the French Franc. The French Frank may have temporarily gone the way of the dodo, but it is still a unit of account. Thus in a kind of a way these countries are on the Euro.
The amount of grief forced on the people of this country by FG/LAB to save what is essentially a doomed currency is all for nothing. We will spend the Punt again sooner rather than later. When we voted No to Nice Democracy was trampled on. Same again with Lisbon. Our resources are being ravaged. Homes being lost at alarming rates. Poverty rising. More taxes than ever in the history of the state. Near collapsed banking system. Privatisation of all that was public. Migration huge. Our government be told it’s every move. We are second class citizens in this European state. Greece is now being trampled on. Who’s Next?
someone needs a history lesson, who was in the chair when the banks went tits up? biffo & his langers fianna failers swanning it up in the palimentary bar on the expense of your hard earned low taxes! the baboons in now are a far cry better than those lushes or the hypocritical tree hugging socialist liars that went with them!
What’s next? Probably just continue as we are for a little while and let the whole Greece thing settle. I don’t know about you, but I could do with a break from a crisis
The Ballyhea Group have been bringing the truth/facts of the Irish peoples predicament to the attention of the wider European community for over 4 years now. Opening the eyes of many, despite the damage our leader and his peers have done convincing them we “all went mad”. Fair play, a fantastic job they’ve been doing on our behalf with the help of Luke Flanagan, Constantine Gertrude, and others.
And, it’s good to have outside interests. Keep active I say
Irish people going around waving Greece flags are clowns
John, never mind waving Greek flags, we should replace out national symbol of the harp by one of a banana.
Hey guys – anyone seen the likes of For Connolly / Jammin / An ciarreach and the load of other shinner & left loons since Syriza capitulated and became a flag bearer for austerity and who done the exact opposite of their election promised & the 61% of what people wanted last Sunday?
No baz you’re wrong. Sovereign economic states operate a fiat currency system. They dictate the value of that currency themselves by pressing some buttons on a keyboard, the markets give them all the money they want, and bobs your uncle, no more austerity, loads of money for welfare, hospitals etc.
Not as eloquent as Coddler, but I think you’ll agree more concise.
I noticed a generally sunnier disposition around here too. Everyone seems … Happy… (Except these ballyhea lads… They seem to be still miffed about 7 year old news)
More concise, but same BS!
A quick glance down through the comments and its easy to see that indeed their is a misery clique on here and its not the people opposing Austerity and private debt bondage its the people who support it. I would imagine most of them bitter old men with public sector pensions and a hardon for the days of the Christian Brothers and the cane across the back of the legs. Self flagellators. Misery suffering the ol church has done a good job on them. For everybody else with a vested interest in living in some sort of happy society I think Ballyhea should be listened to they have been invited over many times by high ranking EzU officials whilst the thick micks on here calling them gombeens are just on here been good little right wing serfs. The subservient minds the bitter minds the desensitised minds the empty shells. Anyone with a since of pride and a brain should dismiss these guys as relics of a subservient past and laughed at really
Well said B-Egan!
Imagine the copying/pasting Waddler will do with this one!
A brilliant article from David Mc Williams on the subject…….
What he says makes complete sense, and something similar was mentioned in relation to our own debts previously i.e. reverting to our punt and pegging to a more suitable currency.
Why are they waving the Greek flag around. Are they waving it for Varouvakis whose negotiating style was to take a pre-emptive Twitter piss on everyone he was about to negotiate with. Or are they waving it for Tsipras , who plunged the Greeks unnecessarily into poverty just to prove a point only to fully surrender at the last minute. Are they waving it for the Greek people who overwhelmingly want to keep the euro? What’s your point ballyhea?
Ballyhae says no, the man from Del Monte, he say yes
Bunch of self serving short sighted morons in this country. I won’t bother saying anything about FG & Labour. They are beneath contempt. Simply, they are traitors to the Irish nation.
Having lost control of our own money supply, there are still many who benefit from the system as it is. It is short sighted & frankly selfish. It’s deffo a case of “I’m alright Jack”. But what they fail to see is that their own kids may not be so lucky as them. Seems to me many folks only wake up when austerity comes knocking on their own door. Then they begin to question things … then the farce we call democracy may become apparent.
nothing like having the ability to print your own money
bringing back the punt will bring pain just short term , long term we Will benefit, banks will close , money will run out , but remember we have the best resources for growing our own foods , we can fish our own waters too , bring back exporting beet . farmers will keep us from starving , if we all pull together we can bring back growth with the punt , never again will we have to get out the begging bowl to financial dictators
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-law-first-state-gold-bullion-depository-federal-reserve/
The U.S. is in trouble and they want NATO countries to stock up weapons to fight Russia over Ukraine or in other words the U.S. is in a mess and want more people to buy weapons from them as in NATO countries?
Greece is only a slideshow to take our attention away from the mess Deutsche Bank is in.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/08/us-deutschebank-ceo-resignation-idUSKBN0ON0JH20150608
A currency union / monetary union can not exist without a political union to control the monetary union, fact.
Banks create borrowing and debt that cause the governments to allow them to print money and the first ones who get this money first make a profit from it? But which government? The German government or the ECB?
AND Obama IS TELLING MERKEL WHAT TO DO WITH THE EURO AND TELLING KENNY TO TAKE LOANS and the U.S. is in a financial mess. Who are they looking after, no one in the Eurozone?
Great – if we drop the euro, then half the major global employers will leave.
Then we’ll have to increase corporation tax to fill the hole left in the public finances.
That will cause half of the remaining global employers to leave.
Meanwhile the weaker Irish currency will cause the cost of imports to shoot up. Leaving us even more uncompetitive.
Is ‘Ballyhea says no’ a parody group, spouting rubbish for entertainment, or are they for real?
No they wont, if we drop the euro we could devalue the new currency and that would increase jobs here because it would leave us with a cheap workforce and all the businesses would come here because we would have a cheap currency. So there would be work for everyone and NO austerity…
So we all agree, we drop the euro and replace it with the Zonk?
Here it was the punt…
Hahahahaha Ballyhea says no, they want to bring back the punt, that has made my day. Always see them in the city, never paid any attention to their nonsense, but I will be now.
Would you be YFG and your real name is Gideon Softcock Wishywashybottom 3rd you sound like one.
It’s actually my confirmation name. Ballyheaaaaaaaaaaaa
If you think our country should bring back the punt, then you my friend are a deluded moron. I suppose you vote Sinn Fein? I, myself am not aligned to any party and will not be voting FG.
What is funny as the Euro will crash and sink and then what?
The Euro is in big trouble especially with the Deutsche Bank AS THAT COULD TAKE DOWN THE EUROZONE but they rather complain about Greece rather than Deutsche Bank…
Oh God. Here we go, think about it, there is 2 major reasons why Ireland has experienced such a high level of foreign investment from major global companies, 1) our corporation tax and 2) we are in the eurozone. Now you can also consider our location I suppose. The euro has made it so much easier for business to happen across Europe. It won’t crash and sink, stop being paranoid, if you think the EU will allow the euro to crash then again you are also deluded. What Europe needs is a fiscal policy to compliment its Monetary policy.
would it not help if the Greek people started to pay a fair amount of taxation well known for many a day that they don’t.
have your say