Increased drinking and drug use during the holidays is a major factor in the growth of violent activity among young tourists in famous holiday destinations, a recent study focusing on Ibiza and Mallorca, Spain revealed.

According to the research, 5% of tourist who visited the famous tourist-islands of Ibiza and Mallorca in Spain were involved in at least one act of violence during their visit. Moreover, 32.4% percent reported to have seen violent activities from time-to-time in the duration of their stay, 5.7% said they’ve seen such episodes frequently, and 4.6% of the respondents said that they witnessed violent acts each night they went out.

The study had a total respondent base of 3,003 tourists who visited the two islands between the years 2007 and 2008. The respondents were either of German, British, and Spanish nationalities aged 16 to 35 years old and they were given a survey at the Ibizan and Mallorcan airports, just as they were returning to their home cities after the holidays.

The researchers were able to compare the violent behaviors of these tourists through qualitative and quantitative techniques that allowed them to have better insight as to which aspects of night life pose as risk factors linking drug consumption and violence.

Consequently, the survey revealed that more than 59.3% of the tourists in Mallorca and 58% of those in Ibiza got drunk for more than twice a week during their stay. Use of illicit drugs, on the other hand, was found to be predominant in Ibiza especially among Spanish and British tourists.

Amado Calafat, one of the study’s authors, explained that tourists who used cocaine were at least three times at risk of becoming involved in a brawl than those who did not use the drug. He also added that tourist who got heavily drunk “five or more days per week were 2.5 times more likely to get into a fight than those who didn’t drink during their holidays.”

Meanwhile, the researchers did not find a link between increased violence and ecstasy use among tourists during the holidays. They, however, were able to produce a basic profile of a violent individual based on the results of the survey. According to the authors, the indicators of violent acts are “to be male, young (16 to 19-years-old), British, get drunk frequently and take cannabis or cocaine during the holidays”.

Following the results of the study, the authors call for the development of intervention strategies and prevention programmes that would address the apparent prevalence of conflict in tourist night spots. They also pointed out that such programmes should be able to uphold healthier behavior for the benefit, not only of the tourist, but of the local population as well.

Learn more about the behavioural effects of drug and alcohol abuse here at the Pacific Treatment Centers Inc. Call our helpline today and discover how you can forge your way our of addiction.

Opiate addiction is prevalent in many countries. In the United States alone, thousands of individuals are suffering from this type of chemical dependency. Each year finds the numbers increasing so that opiate addiction has already become some sort of social disaster.

For many people, addiction is associated with an individual’s wrong choices in his life. It also refers to someone who is morally inept as manifested by his inability to control his life. The popular contention is that short-term placement should be able to solve this problem. Truth be told, this solution does not always work.

The problem is that people have a distorted view of addiction. A deeper understanding of human nature is required to be able to comprehend the sociological mechanisms that drive a person to use drugs. It is also a good idea to trace the history of opiate addiction to help bring on a different view of how the problem has become so prevalent.

Thousands of years ago, people cultivated and grew opiate plants because of their various therapeutic properties. There were no restrictions on this regard because rarely will you find an individual abusing their benefits. It was only when the IV needle was invented before the Civil War that the issue of opiate use escalated into a social problem.

One thing that you need to understand about opiate addiction is that it is a lot different from other cases of substance dependency. For starters, naturally occurring opiates exist in the human brain. People already come with these substances. These chemicals are associated with the brain’s reward functions. They “are responsible for lifting a person’s mood, helping that person feel motivated for everyday purposes and natural pain relief.” People who abuse opiates tend to cause the natural ones to fade into oblivion. The substance they take in usurps the action of natural opiates so that their receptors just stop producing them. Six months to a year into opiate abuse, the natural receptors just die off because their task has already been taken over by addictive drugs. This is how dependence is developed.

Because the natural receptors are already gone, individuals who attempt to quit using opiates generally go through a more difficult time due to painful withdrawal symptoms. 90% of these people tend to go back to their habits in less than a year, at which point, the addiction cycle will just commence, yet again.

Replacement therapy is currently available as a way to treat opiate abuse. In this process, methadone or Suboxone are administered to promote the action of neurotransmitters in the brain. These drugs are opiates as well but their addictive properties are much less pronounced compared to cocaine. This is why some people view this therapy as simply a process of replacing one drug for another. The only difference is that this therapy is administered under controlled conditions through a certified physician. In the coming years, more developments will come up as far as opiate addiction treatment is concerned. These are through the many researches that aim to explain the mechanism of opiate addiction in the brain.

Pacific Hill Treatment Centers will continue to stay on top of industry developments to provide sustainable recovery for its clients. Contact us through this website to learn more about our services.