‘Drug atlas’ shows hotspots of addiction in Switzerland

An overview of patient statistics from 2016 shines new light on the dependency of Swiss on legal and illegal drugs – and pinpoints in which regions most damage is being done. The study, carried out by the Swiss Health Observatory (Obsan) and reported on Sunday in the Le Matin Dimanche newspaper, analysed some 75,000 patient records from 2016 to see how many hospitalisations were directly or indirectly related to intoxication. The findings were stark: over 46,000 “secondary diagnostics” (i.e. if a woman fell off a ladder and hit her head, the primary diagnostic would be “cerebral commotion”) relating to alcohol consumption, 16,000 to tobacco, and 12,000 to sedatives and sleeping pills. A further 8,500 were related to painkillers; 7,000 to cannabis; and 5,000 to cocaine. Overall, the Swiss average for hospitalisations relating to intoxication in 2016 came to 8.9 per 1,000 inhabitants. According to Thilo Beck, however, chief psychologist at the Arud alcoholism clinic ...