Organizations warn children are using alcohol and drugs at younger ages

Children are becoming intoxicated with alcohol and drugs at increasingly young ages, including in primary school, organizations working with young people have observed, LSM reported. The number of children brought to hospital for medical care after becoming intoxicated is also on the rise.

During the autumn school holiday week, 15 young people were brought to the Children’s Clinical University Hospital while intoxicated with alcohol or other substances. One of them was 12 years old. Karina Beinerte, head of the hospital’s Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, said the figure for a single holiday week had doubled compared with the previous year. Overall hospital figures, however, have not doubled; they show a small but steady increase.

About half of the young people admitted were experiencing an overdose. Alcohol remains the most commonly used substance, but mixing substances makes their effects harder to predict, Beinerte said. Most of those admitted during this year’s holiday week were new patients unknown to the hospital. The previous year, all but one had been known to staff and were regular substance users.

The hospital figures do not establish that young people overall are becoming intoxicated more often. But organizations working with children and young people say they have noticed this trend. Gints Jankovskis, head of the organization Laiks jauniešiem, said drug use had become fashionable in some circles, making it harder for young people who do not want to use drugs to resist.

Edijs Klaišis, founder of the OPEN Creative Centre, said young substance users come from families with widely varying levels of wealth. Some also distribute e-cigarettes and drugs. Klaišis said the youngest distributors he had met were eight years old.