Drug abuse of Finnish male prisoners in 1995

The purpose of the present research was to estimate the extent and variety of abuse of illegal drugs, use and misuse of hypnotics and sedatives and an abolic steroids in the Finnish prison population. The study was undertaken during October-November 1995 at four prisons, three of which were closed in stitutions and one an open prison; one of the three closed institutions was a juvenile prison. There was a total of 707 inmates in the prisons selecte d for the study. Questionnaires were given personally to all prisoners in t he open prison and in the young prisoners' division in the juvenile prison, but in two large central prisons only some divisions were selected for the study. The questionnaires were completed by 354 prisoners; 75 prisoners re fused to respond. A total of 27.7% of subjects reported taking illegal drug s while in their current prison and 70.1% had sometimes used them. Of those who were drug-free before their first imprisonment, 21.7% began using drug s in prison. At present hypnotics and sedatives were reported as in use by 41.8% of subjects, one-third as prescribed drugs and about 10% illicitly. A total of 3.7% of subjects reported taking anabolic steroids in the current prison. Cannabis and amphetamine were the most common illegal drugs report ed. Intravenous drug use was reported by 19.2% of the respondents at some p oint in their lives, and 10.7% of prisoners had injected drugs in their cur rent prison. Use of illegal drugs and misuse of drugs were significantly hi gher among young prisoners (less than or equal to 25 years of age). (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd All rights reserved.