The Institute for Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies (ICAD) today released the 5th National Survey on the Consumption of Psychoactive Substances in the General Population, Portugal 2022, which once again presents alcohol as the most consumed psychoactive substance in Portugal. Three out of four people (75.8%) between the ages of 15 and 74 have had at least one experience of alcohol consumption throughout their lives. The value is close to those recorded over the last 20 years, a series that was only broken in 2017, when the rate reached 86.4%. The researchers attribute this increase to the consumption statements made by women, which skyrocketed that year. Going back to 2022, it can be seen that alcohol consumption in the last year has risen from 59.4% to 63.5% since 2017, and consumption in the last month has increased by seven percentage points: from 49.1% to 56.4%, in that same period. The study also shows that there are more people smoking tobacco: "The prevalence of tobacco consumption increased between 2017 and 2022, from 48.8% to 51%". If in the 2001 report the prevalence was 40%, the number of people who admitted to having smoked at some point in their lives has been increasing, approaching 50% in recent years, and now reaching 51%. There are also more regular consumers: The percentage of people who admit to having smoked in the last month "increased slightly in 2022, reaching 31.9% compared to 30.6% in the previous study (2017)", the report reads. As for illicit psychoactive substances, the percentage of people who say they have experimented is 11.2%, with cannabis being the most consumed, with 10.5% of respondents admitting that they had already experimented, of which 2.4% had used it in the last year and 2% in the last month. The other substances have lifetime prevalences of between 0.9% (cocaine) and 0.2% (new psychoactive substances). "The prevalence of consumption among the general population is higher among male respondents regardless of the psychoactive substance considered, with the exception of medications", the study says. As for the consumption of medications, sedatives, tranquilizers or hypnotics have a prevalence of 14.2%, while stimulants were consumed by 1.1% of the population and opioid analgesics by 7.5%. In addition to the consumption of psychoactive substances, the researchers analyzed other risk behaviors, such as gambling practices and Internet use. As for non-substance addictive behaviors, the prevalence of gambling (gambling for money), which had registered a drop of almost twenty percentage points between 2012 and 2017, has risen again. "The prevalence of gambling (gambling for money) is 55.6% in the population residing in Portugal", when in 2017 it was 48.1%. "The Euromillions game is the one with the highest prevalence. The prevalence of gambling is higher among men than among women. The prevalence of playing electronic games in the last 12 months is, in 2022, 8.8% in the population residing in Portugal". The study also points to an increase in Internet use: In 2022, 79.6% use the Internet, almost 20% more than in 2017. The survey was carried out by CICS.NOVA -- Interdisciplinary Center for Social Sciences of the New University of Lisbon (NOVA FCSH) for SICAD -- Service for Intervention in Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies, following the studies carried out in 2001, 2007, 2012 and 2017. Read Also: Did you know that the profits from social games go to health? They are distributed like this (Portuguese version)