Rising juvenile drug use worries police

The number of drug offences found out by the police has grown rapidly over the past few years. The police are particularly concerned about children and the youth with a drug habit, said the police in a press release on Monday.

“The statistics show that drug use has been increasing in all age groups, but also among the children and the young. Last year, a particular increase in drug use was seen among young girls,” said National Police Board Chief Inspector Kari Siivo.

The waste water analyses performed by the Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) also support the notion of growing drug abuse volumes. For example, the volumes of amphetamine use have grown dramatically from 2012, the year in which the analyses started.

According to a survey made in 2018 by THL, cannabis is the most commonly used drug in Finland. The drug survey showed that the share of those experimenting with cannabis was 24 per cent among the population between 15 and 69 years of age. Among the females, the percentage was 19 while it was 28 among the males.

The experiments were markedly high in the age group of adults between 25 and 34 years, almost half of them (44%) had experimented with cannabis in some phase of their life (THL Drug situation in Finland 2020).

Of the drug-related deaths in 2019, the use of cannabis accounted for 156 cases of the total number of 433 deaths. The number of drug-related deaths among the young (15-24 years) has increased by about 30 per cent between 2015 and 2019.

According to Siivo, the police have increasingly focused on active prevention measures, especially among the young, and on gradual intervention steps, instead of imposing fines.

“The gradual measures include talking to those caught for the first time for drug use, including a discussion organised by the public attorney, as well as intensified treatment referrals, in line with the instructions issued by the Police Board to the police units.”

Last year, the number of fines imposed by the police decreased by nine per cent from that in 2019, while the number of referrals to treatment is now manifold in comparison to that in earlier years.

Record of drug use offence stays five years in police registers.