http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a9FUHdWNYWfc
Cocaine Crisis Prompts Spain to Unleash Flood of Anti-Drug Ads
By Paul Tobin
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Tofol, a cook on the Spanish island of Majorca, began sniffing cocaine on weekends four years ago. He soon was spending all his money on the drug and stealing from family members to support his habit.
``It got to a point that after snorting cocaine I was hoping my heart would stop,'' said Tofol, now 26 years old and clean, who declined to give his full name. ``Youngsters taking cocaine have no idea of the risk.''
Cocaine, once a vice of the rich, is now affordable to middle-class youths. Spain's economy grew an average of 3 percent a year for the past decade, beating the European Union average and boosting incomes. A government report to be released later this month may show that Spain has the world's highest cocaine use among 15- to 64-year-olds, outpacing the U.S. for the first time.
The government responded this month with a 2.2 million-euro ($2.8 million) advertising campaign on the dangers of drugs. Its theme: ``Drugs: It's better not to catch some trains.'' TV ads showed teenagers snorting cocaine and smoking cannabis. The sound of snorting a line and exhaling smoke was repeated at a quickening pace, likening it to an accelerating train.
Ties with cocaine-producing former colonies such as Colombia have made Spain the European entry port for the drug, said Thomas Pietschmann, an analyst at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. At 60 euros a gram (0.035 ounce), or as little as 5 euros a line, even young people can afford it.
``For years, I've said that the most dangerous substance we were facing was cocaine,'' said Ignacio Calderon, manager of Fundacion de Ayuda a la Drodadiccion, or FAD, a Madrid anti-drug group. ``Tragically, it's turned out to be true.''
`Cocaine' Consequences
The population at large isn't yet alarmed about Spain's cocaine problem because abuse among teenagers doesn't immediately lead to crime, Calderon said. The consequences of cocaine use also are less obvious than the physical degradation related to heroin, he said.
Ten percent to 15 percent of cocaine users become addicted, said Carmen Moya, who heads the Plan Nacional Sobre Drogas, the government agency fighting drugs. The risk of a heart attack rises 24-fold for cocaine users, the Health Ministry says.
Cocaine users ``are playing a Russian roulette,'' said Moya. ``We are concerned young people try cocaine believing it has no consequences.''
In the 1990s, heroin-related crime helped make drug abuse one of the top three concerns in Spanish opinion polls. By contrast, drugs ranked ninth on the list of Spaniards' worries in a July poll of 2,484 people by Madrid-based Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas.
``Society defended itself from heroin, which as far as the number of consumers goes was a much smaller problem,'' Calderon said. ``Its effects were much more visually aggressive and violent.''
`Strong Upward Trend'
This month's biennial report on drug use may show that the portion of Spaniards 15 to 64 who used cocaine rose from the 2.7 percent reported in 2003. Consumption among adolescents, 14 to 18, quadrupled to 7.2 percent in the 10 years through 2004, according to Spain's Health Ministry.
``There is a very clear, strong upward trend among youth,'' Pietschmann said. In the U.S., the figure for cocaine use in the 15-to-64 bracket probably remained unchanged last year, he said.
Last month, a government-led campaign got underway to make students more aware of the dangers of drugs. The goal is to reach 90,000 pupils at 1,200 schools.
``Cocaine has now moved into schools and is spreading where teens hang out,'' Calderon said. ``For a kid that starts going out nowadays and sees what others do, to say `no' to drugs he needs the courage of a bullfighter.''
In Denial
FAD, which is funded mostly by corporate donations, last year gave courses on drugs to 750,000 students and 10,000 families.
The organization is now studying the devastating effects of drugs, linking them to school dropout rates, youth violence, domestic violence and family break-ups to show the full scope of the problem, Calderon said.
Adolescents are the hardest to cure because they don't want to complete the treatment, said Lino Salas, a spokesman for Proyecto Hombre, Spain's largest non-for-profit drug-treatment organization. The steps being taken to fight drugs may not be enough to stem the rise in consumption, he said.
``Actions and efforts are taking place,'' Salas said. ``But the problem with the emergence of an epidemic is that the response is disproportionate to the size of the problem.''
Tofol was weaned off cocaine at Proyecto Hombre's center in Majorca. The group treated 16,000 addicts last year, up from 13,000 in 2004.
While most of the patients are hooked on heroin, demand from cocaine addicts is growing fastest, Salas said. It's often the family that seeks help, because the typical cocaine user doesn't believe he has a problem.
Tofol knows that sentiment.
``When I started treatment, I thought I didn't have a problem and I fell back in the hole again,'' Tofol said. ``Then I realized.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Tobin in Madrid at at ptobin@bloomberg.net
-------------------- http://heffter.org
|