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LAST UPDATE | 3 Jun 2020
MORE THAN 50% of Irish respondents to a global survey about drugs and alcohol use say they have seen an increase in the frequency of their drinking since the Covid-19 restrictions were implemented.
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 this research has today published an special edition of this study on the impact the pandemic has had on the use of alcohol and drugs.
The interim report found that out of 2,200 Irish people who took part, 54% said the frequency of their drinking had increased by some capacity.
The survey was conducted online and people took part voluntarily, meaning those who responded likely took interest in the topics being examined.
32% said it had increased a little while 22% said it had increased a lot.
This was one of the highest levels of any country surveyed and higher than the global average of 44% who said they noticed an increase.
Most participants of the survey tended to be young, have experience with illicit drugs and employed or in education, the team behind the survey said.
The median age of those who took part in Ireland was 39.
In terms of how Irish people say they are coping with the pandemic and the related restrictions, nearly 52% of respondents said they were coping “really well” which is 2% above the global average.
45% of Irish people said they were coping with some things, but not others.
Alcohol use
Nearly one-third of people globally said the number of days they drink in an average week has increased “a little” since February, before Covid-19 restrictions were in place in most countries.
Overall, 44% of people reported an increase in the frequency of their drinking while 25.5% reported a decrease.
Ireland had the highest number of respondents who said their level of binge drinking had increased, with 38% of people saying it had either increased a little or a lot since February.
Binge drinking is in this instance described as consuming five or more drinks in one single setting.
In terms of the reasons people give for an increase in alcohol consumption, the most common answer was ‘I have more time to drink’ with 43% of people choosing this response.
One-quarter of people surveyed said they were drinking more due to anxieties and stress caused by what is going on at the moment.
Overall, 42% of participants said they would like to drink less alcohol in the next 30 days.
On the other side, two-thirds of people who have seen a decrease in their drinking said this was caused by having less contact with the people they usually drink with.
Government satisfaction rating
Irish people rated their satisfaction with the leadership of the country’s government during the pandemic at eight out of ten when asked in this survey.
The global average for this was seven. People surveyed in New Zealand had the highest median level of any country, with a rating of nine out of ten.
At nearly 90%, Ireland had the second highest number of people who said they had kept a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres between themselves and those outside their household in the past 30 days to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
This is 12% higher than the global average. For self-isolation, however, Ireland was 2% below the global average as 44% of people said they had stayed at home to prevent the spread of the disease.
Illicit drug use
Ireland had the lowest rate of cannabis use, with 23% of those surveyed saying they had used it in the past year.
This compares to a high of 61% in Denmark and 58% in the Netherlands.
40% of people in Ireland who use cannabis products said they had increased their usage in some capacity, while 60% said it had stayed the same or decreased.
Ireland was among the top three users of benzodiazepines in the past 12 months, standing at 12% of those who responded to this survey.
The report on this survey said Covid-19 has had a “huge” impact on drug dealing and distribution.
“It seems that drug markets have been pretty robust and GDS predicts that following lockdown, many regions will be flooded by high purity drugs as dealers try to shift unsold stock and distribute stockpiles that had been prepared for the European summer,” it said.
Relationships
The survey also asked people about abusive relationships and changes to their relationships during the pandemic. It surveyed people in heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
In total, 18% of people said they had noticed more tension in their relationship since the pandemic.
Upwards of 15% of people said they had experienced abusive behaviours, with the highest rate of 20% seen in males with male partners.
45% of females with male partners who have experienced abusive behaviour from their partner in the last month said they had noticed an increase in threats from their partner to harm or kill them or someone close to them.
***
There is still time to take part in the full study.
The team behind the Global Drugs Survey believe in “honest conversations about alcohol and other drugs” and includes questions on whether the respondent’s alcohol and drug use has changed because of coronavirus and if those changes have had subsequent consequences.
There will also be questions about the drug market and access to services.
The survey is encrypted, all responses are anonymous and confidential and it doesn’t collect IP addresses.
The results of the full survey will be published on TheJournal.ie.
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Smart move….think before you speak
@Pateen Johncruck: more like wait for the man in your ear piece to think before feeding you the new script off the top of his head. You never notice these pauses until now? All these politicians are told exactly what to say
@Minamino: then someone needs to get Miller out of Trump’s ear
@Minamino: when your country is bolted to the north of a country being run by a megalomaniac, you have to be very, very, very careful what you say in public.
@Minamino: They are probably just reminding themselves of what they decided to say earlier. Off the cuff comments about the big, and recently a bit unhinged, neighbour right beside you are unwise.
Maybe Trump should consider pausing for 21 seconds every time before he speaks.
@Ken: He did pause for 13 seconds, while a rally crowd chanted “Send her back!”.
@David A. Murray: The numnuts would have to count to 5 four times and add 1 to get his 21 seconds.
@Ken: he should pause for a week before sneaking
@Ken: he prefers his pauses to be scattered throughout the sentence instead
@John Jones: comment of the day….tip ur cap sir.
The king of virtue signalling.
@JackSimpson: Yawn. You guys are so boring.
@JackSimpson: it’s not his fault his mind can think bigger.
@JackSimpson: ‘virtue signaling ‘ is a term that’s been doing the rounds lately with these right wing cranks. It’s an obvious retaliation to their guff been labeled hate speech and I guess they needed to come up with something to use as they attack by nature. The fact that you’re attacking somebody because they are displaying virtue shows your base intent. Stop watching FOX, you’ve been had
@Wayne Connor: Good morning Wayne/ Bmul /other trollish accounts. I hope you slept well. Youve a long day of trolling ahead of you.
The fact that he paused at all was probably enough to trigger the orange man-baby
I think that is a perfectly normal response to the insanity of Trump.
Another Virtue signaling liberal with double standards. He still remembers his blackface pictures. Snowflake guy
@The Equalizer: Congratulations for using all the inflammatory buzzwords you know. Next time see how many you can get in one sentence!
@The Equalizer: You ok hun?
@The Equalizer: Awww, did somebody say something mean about trump? Put your dummy back in and stop throwing your toys out of the pram!!
@The Equalizer: you left out ‘triggered’ and ‘woke’.
@Brendan Heery: didn’t he give powers to his own police force to arrest and prosecute natives that were protesting against their land being forcibly taken from them so for an oil company. No you probably didn’t get feed in your social media platforms as some celebrity didn’t comment on it.
@The Equalizer: how is this “virtue signalling”? He paused before he spoke so he could collect his thoughts.
A lot of internal dialogue going on there!
“Don’t say it” X 21
He didn’t answer the question. He’s a coward
@Jesus Christ:
Disagree. The abomination in the White House is causing many to choose their words carefully because he’s so thin skinned and liable to make really stupid policy decisions that effect millions.
I.e. Paris Agreement, WHO, Trade deals etc etc
Thin skinned and demonstrably stupid.
@Jesus Christ: he did answer the question by saying it was time to listen, that racism is everywhere and enough is enough. If he had answered the question on trump like the media wanted him to, then he would have totally missed the point.
@Jesus Christ: i think he made his point very tactfully.
@Jesus Christ: Because they rely on them for 75% of exports, that’s why he didn’t answer and not because he’s a coward.
@biggybald: In other words… using his loaf.
@Jesus Christ: you mean he didn’t give the answer some people wanted him to. Why should he be drawn into it that way. He was dead right to turn it on themselves and basically say ( in the words of jesus the christ) “first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
” You say it best, when you say nothing at all “
He would have known that question was coming. His response sounded well-rehersed from a prepared script.
I wonder if the pause was intentional to make it seem like he’s a deeper thinker and that he was just coming up with the words that followed in the moment but he messed up the ‘lengthy pause for the gravity of the situation’ by carrying it on a bit too much.
@RogerRamjet: Canadian man bad. Orange man good.
@RogerRamjet: his pause was completely staged. He knew he was going to be asked and he had an answer prepared.
Not a good actor.
@Shazam37: what is wrong with you? Who “stages” a pause? The mental gymnastics your brain performs are incredible. 12 points.
@Drunk in Dublin: who stages a pause? This chap.
FAKE NEWS us park police have already issued a statement saying they didnt fire tear gas they were smoke grenades and they also had no knowledge trump was going to the church for said photo op. A lie can travel half way round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
https://www.nps.gov/subjects/uspp/6_2_20_statement_from_acting_chief_monahan.htm
@paul starrs: concussion grenades too – don’t forget them unless you think the bishop of St. John’s church is lying
@paul starrs: Bill Barr personally ordered the use of force to disperse a peaceful protest according to some sources
@paul starrs: just because the police didn’t know it was for a photo op doesn’t mean it wasn’t for a photo op. See what the leader of the church he went to had to say.
@Dave O’Keeffe: he didnt order them to use tear gas on ” peaceful protesters” the caches of projectiles and weapons they found and the injured officers might be a giveaway
@Thomas Harrington: no such thing as a “concussion” grenade. Concussion is a medical diagnosis not a military ordinance term. Unless you are suggesting that the good bishop is a military ordinance expert…….
Ps, it’s a percussion grenade. Basically a loud banger, one of the safest methods to clear s croud.
@Dave O’Keeffe: yeah that one mentions the weapons cache too lol. Does it mention that this was less than half an hour before the 7pm curfew
@paul starrs: it was still before the curfew. If you were queuing for last orders and were told the bar had closed thirty minutes early I’m sure you would be more than a little surprised.
These were federal police and agents, not DC police and not under the control of the DC police chief. So who issued the orders?
@paul starrs: it mentions police saying there were weapons, it also mentions reporters saying that’s bs. At least I provided a source showing both sides.
Completely staged.
@Shazam37: do you really thinks so? You only mentioned it 3 times already… Are you paid by the quantity of posts?
@Shazam37: I don’t really think it matters, even if it was staged to be honest. Nothing would change if it were not. Same question, same pause, same answer. Trump is a budding dictator and many people are looking on in horror at what the US has become in 4 short years.
@A2 Poster: depends on the point you’re making.
Plenty here are suggesting this shows he “thinks before he speaks” because he paused for 21 seconds before answering. Some have suggested oh he’s better than Trump – he thought about his answer.
The reality is that’s all optics. And the people who think that have been hoodwinked through their own sheer nativity.
The reality is that staged, spun responses like this damage democracy. You can’t get a straight answer from a leader. Lies. Spin. Misleading the public.
As the article says the HONEST answer is “I don’t like him or how he does business but we rely on the States as major trading partners”
The public need to be better informed and realise the actual choices rather than be infantilised by things like this.
Canadians should be aware – sure we can criticise Trump, justifiably, but that might mean you all lose jobs and income.
Same goes here. Let’s make adult choices – and that begins by knowing the actions and the consequences.
@Shazam37: First off, thanks for spending the time to write out a good reply.
“The reality is that staged, spun responses like this damage democracy. You can’t get a straight answer from a leader. Lies. Spin. Misleading the public.”
- This is related to the point I was trying to make above when I said it didn’t matter that it was staged because I don’t think that the answer would change. So I would disagree that what he said was a lie or misleading.
“As the article says the HONEST answer is ‘I don’t like him or how he does business but we rely on the States as major trading partners’”
- It would certainly be more blunt, but the real world doesn’t work this way, and what you have said is a little idealistic. Truth is he needs Trump and the giant economy on his doorstep. Trump has pulled out of climate deals, global health organizations, peace treaties, all to the detriment of his own country. He may well do something drastic if his nearest neighbour were so forward is his condemnation.
Excellent answer, that carefully constructed answer required thought. Trudeau only needed 21seconds. I don’t think Trump could have managed an answer like that in 21 seconds
@Paddy Doherty: what planet are you living on? That carefully constructed answer required hours and a team of people.
How are people THIS naive?
He a man who knows which side of his maple leaf needs to be kept buttered
Forget about anything he said eventually, the 21 seconds said it all.
I understand diplomacy and the importance of trade but just once I’d like to see a politician on the same level as him lay into him. Preferably face to horrible orange face.
@Keniby, Just before the apocalypse.: The 21 seconds doesn’t say anything except – “this is what my spin doctors came up with”
It’s completely staged. To go from that to a pre prepared answer? What you think he was struggling to remember his lines?
Now one can debate the tactics effectiveness – silence as an implied criticism – and that’s fine. But let’s not pretend it wasn’t pre planned.
@Shazam37: who said it wasn’t pre-planned? Your entire comment sounds like a rebuff to a comment that doesn’t exist.
Maybe he also needs to take a short drive across the US border and back again to see if his eyesight is OK!
Man who painted his face black pauses before answer I not sure which is worse the painting face black or using tear gas to quell violence.
@Martin Smith: using tear gas to quell peaceful protest just about takes the win.
The guy was just waiting for the autocue to load his prepared speech, I think people are reading to much into this!
@Ian: yes, like making up the ludicrous idea that he had a prepared speech. Not everyone is out to get you, Ian.
Pathetic hyp0crite and c0ward.
@Seriousnojoke: I usually call Trump a tangerine turd or orange abomination but everyone has their personal favourites I suppose?
I didn’t see any paws of any length. Fake news.
@MrMichaelSpicer – The room next door man should do a take on this!
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