Ecstasy a commonplace?

Sixty percent of the people in The Netherlands between 20 and 24 that go out has used ecstasy in the past year. This astronomically high number comes from the Trimbos institute, an organization that is specialized in addiction, mental health and physical illnesses.

The rapport literally states: ecstasy seems to be a commonplace. Pill poppers use one or two pills at a time. This is not more than it used to be, but since pills contain more MDMA at the moment, the effects are stronger.

An average merry-maker likes to drink quite some alcohol as well. This is the reason for quite some incidents like black-outs and amnesia. Four out of ten of the questioned people suffered from this. The research is only done among young people that go out, the group that likes to stay home in front of the TV on a Saturday night is not included.

The GGD, the Dutch health service, has no specific numbers for this group. What they can tell us, is that only nine percent of the people above 19 years old in Tilburg says to have used hard drugs. Documentary program Zembla did make a documentary about the use of GHB in Brabant. According to the makers, hundreds of people in Brabant are addicted to the drug, which can be made from drain cleaner.