More than nine out of ten adolescents and young adults responded that heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine should continue to be banned in all three waves. Support for bans on cannabis was notably lower, declining from 67.6% in 2008 to 53.7% in 2014. On the contrary, a small number of participants supported bans of alcohol (8.9, 7.0, and 6.9% in 2008, 2011, and 2014, respectively) and tobacco (17.9, 16.5, and 16.0% in 2008, 2011, and 2014, respectively) (Tables 1, 2). There was considerable variation between countries.
Table 1 Proportion of individuals aged 15–24 years who supported a ban of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis in 27 European Union member states, 2008–2014
Table 2 Proportion of individuals aged 15–24 years who supported a ban of cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin in 27 European Union member states, 2008–2014
After adjusting for age, gender, area of residence, education, and current student status, in adolescents and young adults in the EU, compared to 2008, the support for cannabis bans was 10% lower in 2011 and 18% lower in 2014 (PR 0.90, 95% CI 0.87–0.93 in 2011 and PR 0.82, 95% CI 0.79–0.84 in 2014), and the support for cocaine bans was 2% lower in 2011 and 3% lower in 2014 (PR 0.98, 95% CI 0.98–0.99 in 2011 and PR 0.97, 95% CI 0.98–00.99 in 2014). The support for heroin bans was 1% lower in both 2011 and 2014 (PR 0.99, 95% CI 0.99–1.00 in 2011 and PR 0.99, 95% CI 0.98–0.99 in 2014), and the support for ecstasy bans was 2% lower in 2011 and 3% lower in 2014 (PR 0.98, 95% CI 0.97–0.99 in 2011 and PR 0.97, 95% CI 0.96–0.98 in 2014) (Figs. 1, 2; Supplementary Table 2). Support for alcohol bans was also 8% lower in both 2011 (PR 0.82, 95% CI 0.71–0.94) and 2014 (PR 0.82, 95% CI 0.70–0.85) in comparison to 2008. Compared to 2008, there was no difference in 2011 to support for tobacco bans, but support was 11% lower in 2014 (PR 0.89, 95% CI 0.81–0.98).
In general, females were more supportive of bans for all substances, compared to men (PR ranging from 1.01 for heroin to 1.48 for alcohol), while adults (over 18 years of age) gave lower support for the ban of tobacco, and cannabis compared to adolescents. The proportion of respondents living in rural areas supporting bans for all substances except for alcohol was higher than those living in cities. Finally, current students and those who had completed higher education were generally less supportive of bans than those who were not studying at the time of the surveys and those who had only completed primary education. However, there were some exceptions, such as tobacco and cocaine, in which there was no significant difference between respondents of different educational levels (Supplementary Table 1).
By individual countries, there were notable trends between 2008 and 2014. There were statistically significant declines in support for banning cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy for 20, 12, 7, and 9 countries, respectively (Figs. 1, 2). Support for banning all four illicit substances did not fall in seven countries—The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Hungary, and Latvia. For Denmark, Ireland, Poland, and Slovenia, there were significant falls in support for bans for all four illicit substances (cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and cannabis). Of these, Slovenia had the largest falls in supports of substance bans, resulting in the lowest support for bans of cannabis, cocaine, and heroin among the 27 countries in 2014. Between 2008 and 2014, support for substance bans in Slovenia declined 44% for cannabis (from 63.3 to 36.0%; PR 0.56, 95% CI 0.47–0.67), 11% cocaine (from 93.7 to 83.4%; PR 0.89, 95% CI 0.84–0.95), and 8% heroin (from 95.5 to 87.9%; PR 0.92, 95% CI 0.88–0.97)—which were the largest falls in the 27 countries—and 7% for ecstasy (from 89.3 to 84.4%; PR 0.93, 95% CI 0.87–0.99)—the second largest decline. Likewise, in Poland, there were large declines in support for all four substances and lower overall support compared to other countries, whilst both Denmark and Ireland had lower overall support notably for cocaine and heroin. Nonetheless, there was still high support (with most countries over 90%) for bans across countries for cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy.
Cannabis showed the greatest reductions in support for bans—20 countries showing reductions—with over 20% falls in support (from 2008 to 2014) for Austria, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Sweden. The lowest support in 2014 for banning cannabis was in the Czech Republic (27.1, 38.7% in 2008), Slovenia (36.0, 63.3% in 2008), Italy (40.9, 60.4% in 2008), and Ireland (43.1, 61.3% in 2008), whilst the highest was in Romania (85.8, 92.2% in 2008), Cyprus (72.6, 83.8% in 2008), Latvia (72.1, 76.1% in 2008), and Lithuania (71.1, 80.2% in 2008).
There were less significant changes in support for bans for tobacco and alcohol which remained generally low across the 27 countries. In the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, there was decreased support for bans of both alcohol and tobacco, whilst in Spain, Malta, Slovenia, and Romania, there were declines for alcohol, and in Sweden for tobacco. For tobacco, the countries experiencing declines had higher (>20%) than average support for tobacco bans in 2008. For alcohol, many countries with higher support (>15%) for bans in 2008 experienced declines in support, with support in Romania declining 34–15.1% in 2014 (22.3% in 2008; PR 0.66, 95% CI 0.49–0.88).
In very few countries, there was an increase in for support in banning substances. In the Czech Republic, support for banning ecstasy increased by 7% (from 81.2% in 2008—the lowest of the 27 countries—to 85.9% in 2014; PR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01–1.14). In Lithuania, there was 64% increase in support for an alcohol ban (from 10.0 to 17.1%; PR 1.64, 95% CI 1.15–2.33) making it the country with the highest support for a ban in 2014. In three countries—Greece, Lithuania, and Bulgaria—there were statistically significant increases in support of a tobacco ban from 12.4% in 2008 to 19.0% in 2014, 15.3–24.6%, and 9.3–15.9%, respectively.