We are above the European average for alcohol, smoking, gambling and online addiction among teenagers. “We don't have enough specialists,” says the Minister of Education
The Minister of Education and Research, Daniel David, commented on the results of the ESPAD 2024 European study on the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs among teenagers, stating that Romania is below the European average for drug consumption, but above the European average for alcohol consumption, smoking, gambling and online addiction, given that we do not have enough specialists to deal with children's mental health and young people, reports Agerpres.
“Drug consumption in Romania, in schools, is below the European average, but this does not warm us very much, because it is still much too high compared to what we want, but I would like to put this in context, to know that here we are below the European average, but, unfortunately, we are above the European average in terms of alcohol consumption, smoking, gambling, online addiction. (…) If on the first component, with the Ministry of Internally, we are starting to move well, in schools I am optimistic, we are going in the right direction, outside the school, in relation to parents, things are going in a good direction, we have difficulties in organizing medical and psychological services (…). We don't have enough specialists, we don't have enough centers. When I say that we do not have enough specialists, I am thinking of specialists specifically trained in this field, on scientifically validated protocols. These are the levels we need to develop”, said Minister Daniel David, on Friday evening, in an intervention during a debate in Sibiu.
He emphasized that, although thousands of prevention and information activities were organized in schools in recent years, they were uncoordinated and lacked a unitary strategy.
“In 2024, in 2023 and before and in the year 2025, there were thousands, tens of thousands of activities related to addictions in schools. The problem was that these activities were often uncoordinated, they did not have a general scheme. I understood that we were intervening, very well that we were intervening, but how do we coordinate them, but how do we put them into an approach that would have effects. And that's what I tried to do and I proposed that model with three components: a component let's do clean around the schools. Clean means zero tolerance for drugs and dealers, the collaboration with Minister Predoiu is extraordinary in this sense and we collaborate well with the Ministry of the Interior. The second component, what we do in schools, and the message is for awareness. Very often, consumption, the first signs are identified by colleagues, by teachers, not by psychology or medicine specialists in schools. (…) Also, to prepare them children, we started to introduce such themes into the curriculum. (…) We proposed those two new courses for high school, healthy lifestyle, in which we included these problems, and alcohol consumption and drug consumption and smoking and unprotected sex and unhealthy eating and two, an important thing for teenagers (…) that course of personal self-knowledge”, emphasized Minister Daniel David.
According to the Minister of Education, “no matter how hard the school works, no matter how much psychologists work in schools, they cannot replace the parent and then the parent must be involved as well.”
An alarming phenomenon of addictions among children and adolescents in Romania
Present at the debate, the president-elect of the Romanian Association of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (ARPP), the medical director of the “Dr. Gheorghe Preda” Sibiu Psychiatry Clinical Hospital, Ciprian Băcilă, reminded that Romania is facing an acute crisis of specialists in the mental health of children and adolescents, the development of remote consultation services (telemedicine) and teams being necessary mobile within mental health centers and for the prevention of addictions in children.
“Romania currently has approximately 260 doctors specializing in pediatric psychiatry in the public health system, which means only 5 specialists per 100,000 inhabitants, while in Germany there are 29 per 100,000 inhabitants. There are counties where there is no doctor specializing in pediatric psychiatry, and in many rural areas mental health services are completely lacking. Also, due to the shortage of staff in some centers university, the guard line in the Pediatric Psychiatry specialty cannot be functional”, said the doctor Ciprian Băcilă.
And Gabriela Alexandrescu, executive president of the organization “Salvaţi Copiii” Romania, referred to ESPAD 2024, but also to other data collected by the NGO she leads, warning that Romania is facing an alarming phenomenon of addictions among children and adolescents – from gambling and smoking, to alcohol consumption, drugs and digital addiction.
“Unfortunately, many children are in the situation of gambling for money. (…) about 14% of children gambled for money, 40% of children had acquaintances who gambled and one in ten children even has a person addicted to gambling in their family. (…) Another problem that has been under a thick layer of silence and sadness for a decade is that of drug addiction. (…) Our latest research showed that four out of ten children know someone who has consumed drugs, they smoke, they consume alcohol in quite large quantities and by a large percentage, about 27% have consumed alcohol in the last week and almost 50% have smoked various forms of cigarettes. I have a recent report carried out by the European Union Agency on Drugs which shows us that, in Romania, one out of two teenagers has a high risk of digital addiction, Romania is fourth in tobacco consumption among teenagers, one out of two teenagers have tried electronic cigarettes, eight out of ten Romanian teenagers consume alcohol, one out of four teens have had access to gambling,” said Gabriela Alexandrescu.
What the latest ESPAD report shows
Romania is above the European average for the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, gambling and the excessive use of the digital environment among teenagers, according to the latest report ESPAD 2024 (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs), published on Thursday by the European Union Agency for Drugs (EUDA).
“Although at European level there is a decreasing trend of alcohol and tobacco consumption among teenagers, Romania is above the European average in both cases. The trend of increasing time spent by students on social networks or gambling is also felt among teenagers in our country, where we are also above the European average”, the press release on the ESPAD 2024 Report states.
According to the report, Romania ranks 4th in tobacco consumption among teenagers. One out of two students from Romania stated that they had tried electronic cigarettes. The study also shows that 8 out of 10 Romanian teenagers consume alcohol, 1 out of 4 teenagers had access to gambling.
The study was carried out during 2024 in 37 European countries, on a sample of 113,882 people aged 15 and 16. In Romania, the data were collected between April 19 and June 12, 2024, and 8,543 students from all counties participated in the study.
