[The national addictions survey of Mexico]

A probabilistic household survey was made with the following objectives: to estimate the prevalence of consumption of tobacco, alcohol and legal and illegal drugs; to identify attitudes and values, risk factors and problems associated with the consumption of addictive substances in a population from 12 to 65 years old, which resides in the urban areas of Mexico. This survey forms part of the National Health Surveys System, and its sample design is based on the Master Sample Framework of the National Health Surveys System, which gathered information representative of the national population and for seven regions. In the elaboration of the questionnaire indicators proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), validated for Mexico, were used as well as previous knowledge about the topic. Thirteen thousand and five interviews were made, of which 96.7 per cent were complete and 2.6 per cent were rejected. In the group from 12 to 17 years old, 32 per cent of the men and 23 per cent of the women already consumed alcoholic drinks. The age group with the largest proportion of men who were frequent drinkers is from 30 to 39 years of age, with 36.3 per cent. For women 34.0 per cent of the frequent drinkers were found in the 40 to 49 year age group. It was found that six per cent of the population from 18 to 65 years of age is alcohol dependent, 12.5 per cent of men and less than one per cent of women. The population which smokes reaches 26 per cent of the total, with 38.3 per cent of men and 14.4 per cent of women. Forty two and four per cent of smokers are from 18 to 29 years of age. Among the daily smokers, 17 per cent were considered dependent on cigarettes. Only 4.8 per cent of the population admits having consumed some type of drug on at least one occasion, with the men from 12 to 34 years old being the age group which is most affected by the use of drugs (8.5%). Active users in the last year made up 2.1 per cent and in the last month the proportion of active users was less than one per cent. The most frequently used drug was marihuana (1%), the second used were tranquilizers (0.4%), and the third most frequently used were inhalants (glue, thinner) (0.26%). The most commonly consumed drug by male users was marihuana and by female users the most commonly used drug was stimulants.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)