The Netherlands Drug Situation 2010 - Trimbos-instituut

friends list in Windows live Messenger (MSN). These young people seem to be anxious touse the internet or e-mail. Their mean age is 15 years, 64% is female, and more thanhalf of the participants are living outside the cities. On average, an individual participanthas asked 25 questions about sexual health, and 4 questions about alcohol and drugs. 13.3 Mass media campaignsThe most important mass media campaign financed by the central government, which isrunning from January 2010 onwards for two years, is a life style campaign primarily targetedto parents with children from 10 to 16 years: Smoking, Alcohol and Cannabis Education:advice and support to parents (Roken, alcohol en cannabisopvoeding, advies enondersteuning aan ouders). The central slogan of this campaign is: "No Alcohol below theage of 16". This campaign was developed by the Trimbos Institute in collaboration withother partners. In 2011 another public campaign will be developed, which will be targetedat augmenting the coping ability of young people against groups pressure. Thenew Minister of Health (mrs. Edith Schippers) has made clear in her first debate with Parliamentthat the new government feels very strongly about the own responsibility of thecitizens and the freedom of choice as far as life style is concerned ("no patronizing anymore")(T.K. Handelingen 2010-2011-15). It is not known what the consequences ofthese principles will be with regard to mass media campaigns for the coming years.3.4 ResearchYoung peopleIn the Netherlands, youngsters more and more received an image of drug use and otherunhealthy habits. In order to enable an evidence-based view on this topic, the ministerfor Youth and Families has initiated a study into the trends in youth health, lifestyles andbehaviours. The study has reported advantageous and disadvantageous developments(Schrijvers et al. 2008). Smoking tobacco and using cannabis have decreased slightly,while overweight and alcohol use have increased. Psychological problems are fairly frequentamong young people, but did not increase during the past twenty years. Unhealthylifestyles and psychological problems are relatively frequent among youngsters having alower education. The relation between health behaviour and ethnicity, however, remainsunclear.On behalf of the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development(ZonMw), the Trimbos Institute, Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction andthe Addiction Research Institute Rotterdam (IVO) have conducted a so-called 'knowledgesynthesis' (kennissynthese) about the prevention of harmful alcohol and drug use. Onepart of the knowledge synthesis concerns adults (Schrijvers et al. 2010a) and anotherpart concerns young people up to including 23 years (Van Hasselt et al. 2010). With regardto drugs, the knowledge synthesis reviews effective policy measures and interventionsto prevent drug use and to reduce harm among those youngsters that nonethelessdo use drugs, as well as to reduce harm in their environment. Drugs include cannabis,ecstasy, amphetamines, GHB, and cocaine.The knowledge synthesis has selected interventions that fulfill one or more of the followingcriteria: the intervention is at least "well described" according to the data base ofthe Centre for Healthy Living, the intervention has been broadly implemented, or re-1www.trimbos.nl/nieuws/nieuw-op-druginfo---chatbox-bzz49