1. Cannabis epidemic or return of opoid problems or decrease of high risk drug use among young adults in Austria
Addictions Lisbon 2017, Paper Session 2 – The measurement of problems and trends
Martin Busch, Addiction Competence Centre, October 24th 2017

2. Problem opioid use in Austria CRC-estimates
Prevalence 2015: around
Capture-Recapture estimates (police data, opioid substitution treatment, drug related deaths)
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

3. Prevalence estimates stratified by age
Capture-Recapture estimates (police data, opioid substitution treatment, drug related deaths)
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

4. Percentage of age-group < 25 in opioid related data sources
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

5. Age structure of clients in Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST) 2006 and 2016
Source: eSuchtmittel – own calculations

6. Development of clients in OSTcompared to estimated persons addicted to opioids
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

7. DOKLI-Data
DOKLI started in 2006
DOKLI fulfills all requirements of the EMCDDA (Treatment Demand Indicator (TDI))
DOKLI covers 93 % of outpatient and 78 % of inpatient drug treatment units in Austria
BUT
General Practitioners (main providers of OST) are not included in DOKLI (70 % of clients in OST are treated by GPs).

8. Cannabis, opioids and others as primary drug in treatment (first treatments in life) DOKLI
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

9. Age structure of clients (primary drug opioids) in DOKLI 2006 and 2016 (all clients starting treatment in the resp. year)
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

10. Age structure of clients (primary drug cannabis) in DOKLI 2006 and 2016
Source: Epidemiologiebericht Sucht 2017

11. Expert opinions concerning increase of cannabis as primary drug (2 focus groups)
“People get problems because there is high potent cannabis on the market”.
“Some long term cannabis users realize that they have a problem with their cannabis use – cannabis use is accepted by society and has lost it´s stigma”.
“Many cannabis users in treatment have problems with police only”.
“Since the number of young people with opioid problems is decreasing, there are treatment capacities for less problematic cases”

12. Illegal problem drugs in Austria (~22
Illegal problem drugs in Austria (~ clients in treatment – including OST)

13. Conclusions
Main illegal problem drugs in Austria are opioids although incidence is decreasing sharply – will this trend continue?
There are no signs for a significant increase of high risk cannabis use in Austria. The increase of the percentage of cannabis as primary drug in first treatment demands is mostly due to the decrease of incidence of opioid use.

14. Thank you for your attention