Tobacco, alcohol and other drugs use by students of pharmacy in the University of Barcelona – Spain

Aims and background. Nowadays there is an extensive use of many addictive substances among young population, with high utilization of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. In this research, we intended to describe the level in which these substances are consumed by students of Pharmacy in the University of Barcelona.
Methods. A questionary was applied to 178 students between 18 and 27 years old, with questions focused on this population.
Results. Among the legalized substances, alcoholic drinks are consumed by 96,1% of the volunteers, followed by tobacco (69,7%). The mean of use of pure alcohol is 7,52g/day and it increases on the weekends (16g/day). For cigarettes, daily numbers are 3,95 for men and 5,40 for women. Cannabis is the most used among the illicit drugs (47,2%). Subsequently, we found cocaine (7,3%) and ecstasy (3,4%). Positive relations were found between tranquillizers/anti-depressive and tobacco/cannabis.

Conclusions. We concluded that it is necessary to introduce more effective measures to decrease and/or finish the use of these substances, because they are harmful to the human health.