translated from Spanish: Senda Study: Marijuana and Alcohol Use Decline in the Country

The thirteenth national drug study, published by the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Use (Senda), revealed an unprecedented figure: marijuana use declined was once in the country since 2010.
For nine years, marijuana use has been on a gradual rise, peaking in 2016 with 14.5 points. However, this year it fell to 12.7 points.
The director of the Senda, Carlos Charme, believes that the decrease in the use of this drug is due to the increased perception of risk.
“We have some encouraging news. After several studies decreasing the perception of marijuana risk, we have a break and increased more than 20%, 6 points the perception of risk of this drug,” Charme said, according to CNN.
The study also released figures on cocaine and base paste use. The former has experienced a slight decline since 2014, although its history of consumption is somewhat irregular. The opposite is the case with the base paste, whose use is more regular. In fact, since 2010 it has undergone a single variation by reaching 0.5 points in 2014. The rest of the decade has remained at 0.4 points.

Alcohol consumption has also gone down. In this version of the study, alcohol reached 43.3 points, about three points apart from 2016. The same thing has happened with tobacco. However, the use of this has been steadily declining since 2002.

The national drug study has been conducted every two years since 1994. To produce the thirteenth version the Trail surveyed 19,427 people between the ages of 12 and 65, representing 109 communes in total.

Original source in Spanish