The Czech Republic Annual Report 2010 Drug ... - Drogy-info.cz

13 Cross-border Travel, Drug Use, and Drug Services
This Selected Issue provides a summary of information concerning the issue of cross-border travel and drug use, i.e.
so-called drug tourism. Both the publicly available and restricted sources indicate that the phenomenon of drug
tourism has not been addressed by any of the relevant institutions. By its nature, drug tourism is an inter- or
multidisciplinary topic and is difficult to analyse. The available sources suggest that certain groups of tourists visit the
Czech Republic (especially Prague) in search of sex-, alcohol-, and drug-related experiences. There is information
(not always accurate) on the internet that describes the Czech Republic (Prague in particular) as a place where
drugs and sex services are readily available. The harm reduction programmes have also registered a small number
of foreigners among their clients, but these individuals are usually staying in the Czech Republic on a long-term basis
and maintain only minimum contact with drug services.
Drug tourism has not been explicitly referred to in any of the sources available. Despite their limited informative
value, the existing data sources and registers, in which (self-reported) citizenship or nationality is the main discerning
element, may be analysed and interpreted. It may be assumed that drug tourists who come to the Czech Republic
for a limited period of time and use drugs during their stay rarely come into contact with typical drug services. If they
do seek help, such cases tend to involve responses to acute health problems resulting from the excessive
consumption of drugs (including drug overdoses and accidents or injuries). However, there are not enough data to
support this assumption (for example, in Prague, foreigners account for 8% of the individuals treated at sobering-up
stations). First and foremost, these data reflect the information available from the official health and police registers.
Their limitation lies in the fact that they do not account for the residence status (therefore, it is not possible to identify
whether a person is a Czech resident or a tourist on holiday). The issue of tourism, or drug tourism, has not been
specifically followed and analysed by any entity. It may be assumed, therefore, that the official data do not reflect the
phenomenon of the cross-border movement of drug users in its full scope.
13.1 Foreigners in Contact with Treatment and Counselling Services for Drug Users
Data are available from the Czech Institute of Health Information and Statistics, which collects statistical information
on inpatient psychiatric treatment, the register of drug treatment demands administered by the Public Health Service,
and from the survey focusing on foreigners and services for foreigners carried out by the National Focal Point among
providers of drug services.
In the period from 2005 to 2010 foreigners accounted for approximately 1–2% of all the cases of people admitted to
inpatient psychiatric facilities in the Czech Republic in relation to disorders caused by drug use (with the exception of
alcohol and tobacco, i.e. the F11–F19 diagnoses, excluding F17) (Nechanská, 2011a). In recent years there were
50–100 individuals, of whom approximately half were foreigners from countries outside the EU. The number of
hospitalisations of foreigners from non-EU countries has shown a long-term rise. People with permanent residence
in the Czech Republic prevail among the foreigners from EU countries, while it is vice versa as regards the
individuals from non-EU countries 129 ; see Table 13-1. However, the available data make it impossible to distinguish
whether these people are illegal long-term residents in the Czech Republic or are staying in the country temporarily
(as tourists, for example). Among the hospitalised foreigners, men outnumber women in a ratio of 2–3 : 1 (see Table
13-2); they are mostly people in the 20–29 age category.
Table 13-1: Hospitalisations of foreigners for disorders caused by the use of substances other than alcohol and tobacco
(dg. F11–F19, excl. F17) according to their EU affiliation status and Czech Republic residency status, 2005–2010
(Nechanská, 2011a)
Year
Total number of
hospitalisations
Including foreigners from
EU countries
With
permanent
residence
Without
permanent
residence
Total
Including foreigners
from non-EU countries
With
permanent
residence
Without
permanent
residence
Total
Total number of
hospitalisations of
foreigners
Number
Proportion in all
hospitalisations (%)
2005 4,830 24 11 35 3 19 22 57 1,2
2006 5,286 15 21 36 6 24 30 66 1,2
2007 5,497 18 15 33 7 27 34 67 1,2
2008 5,428 30 11 41 7 24 31 72 1,3
2009 5,464 48 7 55 6 33 39 94 1,7
2010 5,356 42 5 47 13 40 53 100 1,9
129
Foreigners with visas allowing them to stay in the Czech Republic for over 90 days, with special visas, and who have been granted
the status of a refugee or an asylum seeker are considered permanent (long-term) residents.
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