Students from Bulgaria smoke more than most other European countries..

March 27, 2009 - Bulgarian students are more often drunk and smoke a lot more than the majority of their European fellows in other countries. The European School and Research Project On Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) 2007 survey report was presented on late Thursday, 3/26/2009. The main purpose of ESPAD is to collect comparable data on substance use among 15-16 year old European students in order to monitor trend within as well as between countries. The 2007 ESPAD Report..

Smoking is an area for concern as 40 percent of Bulgarian students (some examples: Austria 45 percent, Latvia 41 percent, Czech Republic 41 percent, Armenia 7 percent) had smoked within a 30 day period before the survey, which is way above the European average. The survey showed that 24 percent of students in Bulgaria have tried illegal drugs with the prevalence rates for cannabis (22 percent) and other drugs (9 percent) both being close to the European average.

Alcohol abuse is also prevalent amongst Bulgarian youths with 45 percent of school students reporting being drunk at least once a year, which is again above the EU average.

Reference: Bulgarian Kids Smoking ‘Above EU Average’, BalkanInsight.com, 3/27/2009.

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