640,000 Czech people are high-risk alcohol drinkers: report

About 640,000 Czech people over 15 years old are high-risk alcohol drinkers and may be addicted to it, a report indicated Wednesday.

In addition, another 540,000 people drink in a way that harms them, being close to risk-drinking, according to the report completed by the Czech national monitoring center for drugs and addictions on the use of drugs in 2015 submitted to the government.

The users of pervitin (methamphetamine), heroin and other illegal drugs in the country were 46,900 last year, according to the report.

About 12.5 percent of Czechs (19 percent of men and 6 percent of women) drink alcohol regularly or even daily.

Men drink daily at least three beers, six deciliter wines or three glasses of spirits, women are at least two beers or two glasses of wines or spirits.

Seven percent Czechs are risk drinkers and 6 percent drink in a way harmful to them. Almost 25 percent of Czechs (28 percent men and 19 percent of women) smoke daily.

The figures represents about one million of risk alcohol drinkers, including 640,000 high-risk drinkers, said the report.

The number of injuries under the influence of alcohol has risen from 4,959 in 2002 to 7,384 in 2015, which is from 2.7 to 3.5 percent of the total number of injuries registered in 2002 and 2015, respectively.

Alcohol played a role in 4,544 road accidents claiming a total of 62 lives.

The Czech government adopted a plan of measures to fight alcohol drinking, smoking and gambling in 2015.

It intends to ban smoking in restaurants, introduce compulsory deterring pictures on cigarette packagings, reduce the number of vendor places and impose sanctions on the owners of pubs where drunk children are found.

The goal of the measures is to gradually reduce the consumption of alcohol and tobacco of young people and postpone their first experience with an alcoholic beverage for about three years. Endit