The Netherlands Drug Situation 2010 - Trimbos-instituut

The largest difference in the proportion having received addiction treatment has beenfound between the problem opiates users (87%) and the problem crack users (41%).Smaller differences, but still larger than 10%, have been found between problem drugusers younger than 35 years (67%) and 35 years and above (79%); problem drug usersborn in Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles (74%) and born in Morocco and Turkey(88%); and between problem drug users living on our their own or with family (73%)and in supported living (86%).To explain that problem crack users are less often in treatment compared to problemopiates users, some hypotheses can be formulated: no substitution treatment is available yet for crack users, and therefore the addictioncare has less to offer to this group; crack users are younger, have still less problems compared to the older opiates usersand therefore feel less urge to seek treatment.A logistic regression-analysis has been performed to test which factors predict whether ornot a problem drug user received addiction treatment. In the logistic regression-analysisthe following covariates were entered: "substance", "gender", "age", "living inside or outsidethe four largest cities", "country of birth", "mother's country of birth", "father'scountry of birth", "housing situation", "source of income", "level of causing public nuisance",and "level of psychiatric problems". It was found that, from all these covariates,only "substance" was a statistically significant predictor for being in treatment or not(p=0.000). "Age" was not statistically significant (p=0.9). These findings suggest thatbeing younger is not the reason why crack users less often receive addiction care.Given the large differences in the in-treatment rates between the problem opiates usersand the problem crack users, it is interesting to have a closer look at the differences betweenthese two groups. Apart from the difference in the in-treatment rates, table 4.2.2shows some more differences between these two groups.58