Table Prison-3. Prevalence of drug use within prison among prisoners (estimated percentage)


Country	Source / ref.	Year	Definition and methodological comments	*Drug used (and, if any, restriction on base popn.)*	% IDU

Belgium	¹	1999	people reporting regular drug use during previous and current imprisonments Comment: survey in two prisons (1 male prison + 1 woman section in another prison) amongst voluntary prisoners (n= 246)	any illicit drug	42
				cannabis	37
				cocaine	9
				heroin	13
				amphetamines	8
				ecstasy	5
				LSD	2
	²	1997	people reporting lifetime drug use in prison Comment: survey in one prison amongst on remand and convicted prisoners (n=115)	cannabis	38
				cocaine	15
				amphetamines	4
				ecstasy	8
Finland	¹	2001	people reporting illicit drug use while in prison Comment: national survey among a sample of voluntary HIV tested convicted prisoners (n= 825)		16.5
France	³	1997	people reporting drug use within the last year while in prison Comment: survey in 3 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n=960)	cannabis	24
				cocaine	7
				amphetamines	2
				ecstasy	3
Germany	²	1996	drug users in prison (based on information given by key persons) Comment: survey in one prison based on reports of pre-selected key prisoners (n=16), doctor, pastor(s)		60
Greece	¹	2000	people reporting lifetime drug use while in prison Comment: survey in 1 prison amongst on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 136)	any illicit drug	47
	⁴	1995	lifetime drug use in prison (based on self-reports and serum tests) Comment: survey in 2 prisons amongst convicted voluntary prisoners (n= 544)	any illicit drugs	56
				cannabis	5
				cocaine	0.4
				heroin	40
Hungary	¹	1997	people reporting drug use at any time during imprisonment Comment: national survey in a sample of all prisons amongst adult male prisoners of Hungarian citizenship (n= 951)	any illicit drug (males)	8
				cannabis (males)	2
				cocaine (males)	1
				heroin (males)	1
				ecstasy (males)	2
				amphetamines (males)	2
				other drugs (males)	3
Ireland	⁵	1996	men reporting heroin use while in prison (current sentence) Comment: survey in one male prison (one-fifth systematic sample) (n=108)	heroin (males)	42
	⁵	1996	men reporting regular (once a week) heroin use while in prison (current sentence) Comment: survey in one male prison (one-fifth systematic sample) (n=108)	heroin (males)	36
Latvia	¹	2003	people reporting lifetime drug use in prison Comment: national survey in 11 (out of 15) prisons with at least 100 convicted persons (n= 2.867)	cannabis	28
				cocaine	4
				heroin	12
				amphetamines	12
				ecstasy	7
	¹	2003	people reporting drug use within the last year in prison Comment: national survey in 11 (out of 15) prisons with at least 100 convicted persons (n= 2.867)	cannabis	15
				cocaine	2
				heroin	5
				amphetamines	8
				ecstasy	4
	¹	2003	people reporting drug use within the last month in prison Comment: national survey in 11 (out of 15) prisons with at least 100 convicted persons (n= 2.867)	cannabis	6
				cocaine	1
				heroin	2
				amphetamines	2
				ecstasy	1
Portugal	¹	2001	people reporting drug use within the last year in prison Comment: natiowide survey (47 prisons) in a random sample of on remand and convicted prisoners (n=2.057)	any illicit drug	52
				cannabis	44
				cocaine	26
				heroin	33
				amphetamines	10
				ecstasy	10
	¹	2001	people reporting drug use within the last month in prison Comment: natiowide survey (47 prisons) in a random sample of on remand and convicted prisoners (n=2.057)	any illicit drug	30
				cannabis	24
				cocaine	7
				heroin	15.5
				amphetamines	1.5
				ecstasy	1
	¹	2001	people reporting regular (everyday) drug use within the last month in prison Comment: natiowide survey (47 prisons) in a random sample of on remand and convicted prisoners (n=2.057)	any illicit drug	10
				cannabis	5.5
				cocaine	2
				heroin	5
U.K. England & Wales	¹	2001	women reporting drug use in the current period in prison Comment: national survey of female prisoners on remand and convicted in 10 prisons (n= 301)	any illicit drug (females)	51
				cannabis (females)	23
				cocaine/crack (females)	9
				heroin/opiates (females)	40
				amphetamines (females)	1
				ecstasy (females)	2
				other tranquilizers (females)	18
	¹	2001	women reporting regular drug use (weekly or more frequent) in prison Comment: national survey of female prisoners on remand and convicted in 10 prisons (n= 301)	any illicit drug (females)	27
				cannabis (females)	4
				cocaine/crack (females)	3
				heroin/opiates (females)	19
				other tranquilizers (females)	9
	⁴	1997	people reporting drug use during the last time in prison Comment: nationwide survey in all 131 prisons (n=3.142)	cannabis	19-46
				cocaine	1-4
				heroin	12-20
				amphetamines	0-4
				crack	2-8
U.K. Scotland	⁹	2003	people reporting drug use during the current imprisonment Comment: national survey in 16 prisons among all prisoners available at the time of the survey (n= 4741)	any illicit drug	32
				cannabis cocaine/crack heroin/methadone/ other opiates amphetamines	24 6 21 5
Norway	¹	2002	people reporting drug use during the current imprisonment Comment: national survey in all 52 prisons among on remand and convicted prisoners (n= 1.074)	any illicit drug	26-38
	²	1997-1996	inmates who used drugs once or several times while serving their sentence Comment: estimated by prison authorities on the basis of previous studies in prison and reports submitted by prison and visitation officials		40-60

Notes:
Caution should be applied when considering that a survey is said to be 'national' as this refers to its intended geographical coverage, but does not mean it is necessarily representative of the national situation, which would depend on any sampling procedures adopted. Note that the size of the prison population surveyed is not available for most of the studies displayed in this table, and sample sizes reflect different proportions of the population in different countries.
England & Wales 1997: results are provided for 4 different sub-groups of population: male remanded, male sentenced, female remanded, female sentenced. Women and men on remand represent a small proportion of the prison population, and thus these groups were over-sampled. Ranges reported here represent the minimum and maximum values obtained across the 4 sub-groups.

Sources:
For sources and bibliographic references, refer to [Table Prison-0].

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