XTC (Ecstacy) study in Luxemburg: A community approach in research and its implications

Thérése Michaelis

Centre de Prévention des Toxicomanies, 3 rue du Fort Wallis, Luxembourg 2714, Luxembourg.

Phone no: 352 –49 77 77 Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Background

The mission of the Institution "Centre de prévention des toxicomanies" is primary prevention in the sense of health promotion. It tries to prevent substance abuse and to help people who have problems with their addiction. When the centre was created in 1995, it focused on some main areas. The first was that calling for abstinence amongst adults would never prevent addiction. The certainty was that addiction develops over a certain period of time and through many processes. It is not only linked to drugs but to people and their environment. One of the main ideas was that prevention work has to target parents, adults and not to focus on young people.

Very soon, however, we were forced to deal with the XTC-phenomena which seemed to be linked only to young people.

So, two years ago the "Centre de prévention des toxicomanies" started a study in Luxembourg to find out the extent of XTC-use. One of our hypotheses was that, if XTC use does exist, it has some links with society as a whole phenomenon.

Why this ?

1. Earlier data of 1987 and especially 1992 about 17 year old young Luxembourg people showed the increasing use of legal psychoactive drugs: such as sleeping pills, sedatives and amphetamines.

2. Educators and teachers reported more and more often about children taking suit-cases full of pills for all imaginable diseases with them on a holiday or on a summer or winter camp.

3. Medicament advertisements promoting wellbeing and enhanced physical and psychic performance showed the way to the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis

The recent trend of using pills during dance events to positively change feelings and to increase performance is linked to what young people learn in everyday life: at home, on television, among colleagues and at school.

The research

In our rapid assessment study different people from the community were questioned. Services for young people or adults, medical doctors, specialised health services for drug addicts, the police, as well as owners and managers, were asked to consider drug use and associated problems. 600 students aged 13 to 18 years old happily complied, and we tried to gain insight into what users were thinking.

The results

Thus in our XTC-study in 1997, we questioned people about their use of different kinds of drugs, both legal and illegal, and got the following answers :

1. All XTC-users, occasional or regular, also used alcohol and tobacco, whilst 78,5 % used cannabis products;

2. They used at a high rate more legal pills and medicines than their peers who had never tried XTC.

The consumption of these "legal drugs" by non-users and XTC-users was expressed in percentage and gave the following comparisons:

Why, if you can get pills for all sorts of diseases or to increase your performance at school or at sport for instance, why not take pills to increase your pleasure and performance at a weekend party?

As for the question of risk behaviour or risk awareness, we have to look closely at all the factors playing a role in this behaviour.

Psychologists think that the "readiness" ("tendency") to risk behaviour among very young people is also linked to the relationship they have to adults. If you don't feel well at home or at school and if you have no adult to confide in, is there any risk in taking a pill to feel better? Why not take risks, if nobody cares for you?

Information and warnings given by the media and repeated by most adults about the terrible dangers of drugs are unrealistic and unbelievable compared to the experience of everyday life and parties.

Prevention

What about prevention policy in that sociological setting ?

Primary prevention needs a more global systemic approach; it has to raise awareness about links and relationships between different phenomena in the same society.

Our youngsters, and it is them we are talking about, are much closer to us than we often want to know, especially in such situations!

They are part of our society and reflect more clearly what is going on. It is hard to look at the mirror and deal with the reality of everyday life but that will be our only chance to succeed with primary prevention.