Netherlands National Drug Monitor - Research and Documentation ...

Age, gender and urbanisation level
• Ever use of cocaine occurs mainly among males (5.2%, versus 1.6% among females)
and in the age group 25 to 44 years (5.3%, versus 2.8% among 15-24 year olds and
1.6% in the 45-64 age bracket).
• Cocaine use occurs mainly in the big cities. 7.6% of the population in very highly
urbanised areas have used cocaine. This compares with only 0.7% of the population
in non-urban areas.
• The numbers of recent and current users are too small to permit a further breakdown
by age, gender and urbanisation level.
• Between 2001 and 2005 there was a rise in the average age of recent users.
• The age of onset is the age at which an individual first used a substance (see also
appendix A: age of onset). Among ever users of cocaine, the age of onset was 17.6
on average for the 15 to 24 year age group. In the population aged 15 to 64, the
average age of onset is 23.1 years.
3.3 Usage: juveniles and young adults
School-goers
According to the Dutch National School Survey (Monshouwer et al., 2008), considerably
fewer secondary school students use hard drugs, such as cocaine than cannabis.
• From 1988 to 1996 there was, however, an increase in cocaine use among schoolgoers,
both for ever use and current use (Figure 3.1).
• This trend was no longer found in the measurements after 1996. The percentage of
pupils that had ever used this drug dropped slightly; the difference between 1996
and 2007 is statistically significant. The percentage of current cocaine users remained
stable during this period (Figure 3.1).
• More boys than girls have ever (2.1% vs. 1.3%) or recently (1.1% vs. 0.4%) used
cocaine.
• The percentages of cocaine users seem somewhat lower among pupils attending a
higher level school (VWO) compared to their peers who attend a lower level school
(HAVO and VMBO); however these differences are not statistically significant.
3 Cocaine
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