Hi, person from Iceland here. Drug use has actually been going up since these numbers were reported. It's true that alcohol use went down compared to the decades before but you must understand teenage drinking was so common. It's the only thing teenagers used to do for years and years. For us to get these numbers down is groundbreaking yes but drinking is still a huge problem for Iceland and drugs kind of just took over from alcohol.
It's true though that the increased focus in activity such as sports etc does actually work. As soon as the city allowed people to use a sort of point system were they get x amounts of points per year which can be used for sports and such things got much better. This means poor families can also send their kids to activities which is really positive.
Drugs in general are really popular now. The drug market in Iceland in general has been growing extremely fast over the past years and it's become really professional in terms of quality and delivery. We have a relatively small police force right now and the size of the drug market is way beyond their control.
I just find it kind of misleading everytime I see these articles. It's true we got drinking down but in general Iceland deals with a lot of depression, a lot of suicides and a lot of narcotic related issues every year. We have a very high suicide rate per capita, especially for men.
What I mean is that these articles express this like we got rid of the problem, we totally did not. The fact that the state gives credits for sport activities etc each year is an extremely positive thing though.
It's true though that the increased focus in activity such as sports etc does actually work. As soon as the city allowed people to use a sort of point system were they get x amounts of points per year which can be used for sports and such things got much better. This means poor families can also send their kids to activities which is really positive.
Drugs in general are really popular now. The drug market in Iceland in general has been growing extremely fast over the past years and it's become really professional in terms of quality and delivery. We have a relatively small police force right now and the size of the drug market is way beyond their control.
I just find it kind of misleading everytime I see these articles. It's true we got drinking down but in general Iceland deals with a lot of depression, a lot of suicides and a lot of narcotic related issues every year. We have a very high suicide rate per capita, especially for men.
What I mean is that these articles express this like we got rid of the problem, we totally did not. The fact that the state gives credits for sport activities etc each year is an extremely positive thing though.