Netherlands National Drug Monitor - Research and Documentation ...

Figure 4.2 Problem users of opiates in Amsterdam, from 1985
10000
Number
8000
6000
4000
2000
1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007
Born in Surinam, the Netherlands Antilles, Morocco or Turkey
Born in the Netherlands Born elsewhere Total
Source: GGD Amsterdam
Age
The population of heroin users is getting older.
• In Amsterdam the average age of methadone clients has risen from 32 in 1989 to 48
in 2008 (Source: GGD Amsterdam). National data from addiction care centres (see §
4.6) show a similar trend.
• The ageing of heroin users is accompanied by an increasing number of somatic and
psychiatric health problems.
Manner of use
The use of opiates poses a particularly high health risk when the drugs are injected. Over
time, the injecting of drugs has declined among opiate users.
• Among drug users participating in the Amsterdam Cohort Studies on HIV/AIDS, the
number who reported having injected opiates since the previous survey dropped from
57% in 1985 to 21% in 2004 (Lindenburg et al., 2006).
• In 2008 9% of opiate clients of (outpatient) addiction care were registered as injectors,
and 75% as smokers – around the same number as in 2007 (9% and 71%
respectively). The remainder took the drugs in a different way (Ouwehand et al.,
2009). In 1994, 16% of users were injecting, and in 2001 12%.
• The long-term decline in the number of needles and syringes that are exchanged in
needle-exchange programmes in Amsterdam and Rotterdam is also an indication of
the decline in opiate injecting. However, recently an increase in the number of needles
4 Opiates
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