In 2008-2009, 10.1 percent of adults had used one or more illegal drugs within that last year. This was an overall decrease from 1996. Marijuana (cannabis) is the drug that is most likely abused by adults and young people. 7.9 percent of individuals between the ages of 16-59 years old used marijuana within that year.

During this same time frame, there were 5,668 hospital admissions that were drug related to mental and behavioral disorders. There were more male than female admissions during that time. The total number of drug related deaths in England and Wales was 1,738 in 2008. 78 percent of those who died were male. The underlying case of most of the deaths was accidental poisoning for both male and female. The drug situation according to the Monitoring Centre for European drug addiction in 2009 has increased; some of the drugs of abuse are listed below. Drug abuse in Europe among young people is one of the major causes of health problems and death.

Marijuana (Cannabis) and Hash

Over the past decade, marijuana use has considerably grown. Cannabis (marijuana) is very attainable in Europe. In the early 1990s and beginning years of 2000, marijuana was quite prevalent in many countries but in European countries at least by today's standards, marijuana use was quite low. Since then, cannabis abuse has increased considerably making marijuana a drug of choice. Hash on the other hand is also abused in Europe and very predominant and equally abused. A large majority of hash that's found on the European market comes from Morocco.

Amphetamines and Ecstasy are abused frequently in Europe. Ecstasy and amphetamines are the second most abused drugs in Europe. Methamphetamine and amphetamines are central nervous system stimulants. Of the amphetamines found in Europe, methamphetamine abuse seems to be a problem for the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Before the 1980s, Ecstasy was unheard of in Europe but in the 1990s was becoming quite well known. Because of the drugs popularity associated with music, dancing and partying ecstasy has become much more abused and popular.

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a hallucinogenic drug but use is extremely low. Hallucinogenic mushrooms may be a little more popular among young people in Europe due to the natural hallucinogens they contain. LSD is a synthetic or man-made synthetic hallucinogenic drug.

Cocaine and Crack Cocaine abuse seems to have increased during the past decade as well as cocaine seizures in the European Union, but for the most part abuse to cocaine stays in the western member states. Most of the individuals abusing cocaine and crack cocaine are occasional users of the illicit drugs.

Heroin abuse has been a problem in Europe since the 1970s. Injecting heroin appears to be the most popular way of abusing this drug. There has been a decline in heroin abuse over the past several years but recently data shows in some countries abuse may be increasing.

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