Table Prison-1. Prevalence of lifetime use of various drugs among prisoners (estimated percentage)
| Country | Source / ref. | Year | Definition and methodological comments | Drug used (and, if any, restriction on base popn. ) | % |
| Austria | 3 | 1994 | people reporting having used illicit drugs Comment: survey in one prison amongst Narcotic Drug Act convicted people (n=307) |
72 | |
| Belgium | 3 | 1993 | people reporting having used illicit drugs Comment: survey in one prison amongst volontary prisoners entering prison (n=1.627) |
42 | |
| Finland | 1 | 2001 | people reporting having used illicit drugs Comment: national survey among a sample of voluntary HIV tested convicted prisoners (n= 825) |
any illicit drug | 58 |
| opiates | 5 | ||||
| amphetamines | 29 | ||||
| 3 | 1995 | people reporting having used illicit drugs Comments: survey in 4 prisons | 31 | ||
| Greece | 1 | 2000 | people reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment. Comments: survey in 1 prison amongst on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 136) | any illicit drug | 47 |
| 2 | 1998 | adolescents reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment Comment: survey in 2 prisons for adolescents, both on remand and convicted, enrolled in vocational training (n= 100) |
cannabis (adolescents) | 46 | |
| cocaine (adolescents) | 18 | ||||
| heroin (adolescents) | 19 | ||||
| amphetamines (adolescents) | 4 | ||||
| ecstasy (adolescents) | 7 | ||||
| other drugs (adolescents) | 11 | ||||
| 4 | 1995 | lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment (based on self-reports and serum tests) Comment: survey in 2 prisons amongst convicted voluntary prisoners (n= 544) |
cannabis | 22 | |
| cocaine | 6 | ||||
| heroin | 66 | ||||
| Hungary | 1 | 1997 | lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment (based on self-reports and serum tests) Comment: national survey in a sample of all prisons amongst adult male prisoners of Hungarian citizenship (n= 951) |
any illicit drug ((males ) | 22 |
| cannabis (males ) | 11 | ||||
| cocaine (males) | 5 | ||||
| heroin (males) | 3 | ||||
| amphetamines (males) | 7 | ||||
| other drugs (males) | 1 | ||||
| Ireland | 5 | 1996 | men reporting lifetime drug use. Comment: survey in one male prison (one-fifth systematic sample) (n=108) |
any illicit drug (males) | 86 |
| cannabis (males) | 86 | ||||
| cocaine (males) | 56 | ||||
| heroin (males) | 66 | ||||
| amphetamines (males) | 61 | ||||
| ecstasy (males) | 6 | ||||
| Latvia | 1 | 2003 | people reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in 11 (out of 15) prisons with at least 100 convicted persons (n= 2.867) |
cannabis | 51 |
| cocaine | 15 | ||||
| heroin | 24 | ||||
| amphetamines | 22 | ||||
| The Netherlands | 1 | 2002 | men reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment Comment: survey in 8 prisons among male detainees (n= 355) |
any illicit drug (males) | 79 |
| 5 | 1989-1990 | young male offenders reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment (DSM-III) Comment: survey among young male convicted detainees in one youth detention centre, aged 18-24 years (n= 200) |
any illicit drug (young males) | 58 | |
| Portugal | 1 | 2001 | people reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: natiowide survey (47 prisons) in a random sample of on remand and convicted prisoners (n=2.057) |
any illicit drug | 61 |
| cannabis | 54 | ||||
| cocaine | 44 | ||||
| heroin | 44 | ||||
| amphetamines | 18 | ||||
| ecstasy | 16 | ||||
| Spain | 3 | 1998 | women reporting lifetime drug use (alcohol included) Comment: survey in 18 prisons (n=356) |
any illicit drug - alcohol included (females) | 7 |
| UK England & Wales | 2 | 2001 | women reporting lifetime drug use Comment: national survey of female prisoners on remand and convicted in 10 prisons (n= 301) |
any illicit drug (females) | 84 |
| cannabis (females) | 78 | ||||
| cocaine/crack (females) | 57 | ||||
| heroin/opiates (females) | 6 | ||||
| amphetamines (females) | 58 | ||||
| ecstasy (females) | 47 | ||||
| other tranquilizers (females) | 57 | ||||
| 5 | 1997 | people reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment Comment: nationwide survey in all 131 prisons (n=3.142) |
any illicit drugs | 69-85 | |
| cannabis | 65-82 | ||||
| cocaine | 30-42 | ||||
| heroin | 34-52 | ||||
| amphetamines | 40-53 | ||||
| crack | 28-44 | ||||
| Norway | 1 | 2002 | people reporting lifetime drug use prior to imprisonment. Comment: national survey in all 52 prisons among on reland and convicted prisoners (n= 1.074) |
any illicit drug | 7 |
| cannabis | 65 | ||||
| cocaine | 51 | ||||
| heroin | 37 | ||||
| amphetamines | 59 | ||||
| ecstasy | 45 | ||||
| Notes: | |||||
| Caution should be applied when considering that a survey is said to be 'national' as this refers to its intended geographical coverage, but does not mean it is necessarily representative of the national situation, which would depend on any sampling procedures adopted. Note that the size of the prison population surveyed is not available for most of the studies displayed in this table, and sample sizes reflect different proportions of the population in different countries. | |||||
| England & Wales 1997: results are provided for 4 different sub-groups of population: male remanded, male sentenced, female remanded, female sentenced. Women and men on remand represent a small proportion of the prison population, and thus these groups were over-sampled. Ranges reported here represent the minimum and maximum values obtained across the 4 sub-groups. | |||||
| Sources: | |||||
| For sources and bibliographic references, refer to [Table Prison-0]. | |||||
