A small group of Pacific islands with the population of a small town has been named as the country with the highest consumption of beer and cannabis. Is that really true?
The United Nations' 2012 World Drugs Report, published in June, contains at least one surprising number - the nation with the highest level of cannabis use among adults is Palau. This tiny island nation in the western Pacific Ocean is home to just 21,000 people, where - according to the UN - a quarter of adults use cannabis.
Not only are Palauans ahead of everyone else on this measure, they're ahead by a long way. The country with the next highest rate of cannabis use is Italy, where - the report says - some 15% of adults use the drug.
If the idea that Palau is some sort of hedonist's retreat sounds familiar, that may be because the island topped a 2011 World Health Organisation chart examining another vice.
According to the WHO's global status report on alcohol and health, Palauans drink more beer per capita than any other nation in the world.
| Beer | Cannabis | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Source: World Health Organisation, United Nations Beer - litres of alcohol consumed annually per capita aged 15+ Cannabis - prevalence of use as % of population, 15-64, countries only | |||
| Palau | 8.68 | Palau | 24.2 |
| Czech Republic | 8.51 | Italy | 14.6 |
| Seychelles | 7.15 | New Zealand | 14.6 |
| Irish Republic | 7.04 | Nigeria | 14.3 |
| Lithuania | 5.60 | USA | 14.1 |
Let's look at beer drinking first. The WHO report was published in 2011 but it compared data from 2005.
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Republic of Palau
- Area: 508 sq km (196 sq miles) of more than 200 volcanic and coral islands
- Capital: Melekeok
- Politics: Became independent in 1994 after being run by the US
- Leader: President Johnson Toribiong (above)
- Economics: Heavily dependent on US aid. Some tourism. Fishing by foreign fleets contributes to national income
- International: One of few countries to recognise Taiwan
That's important because, for some reason, Palauans appear to have gone on a drinking spree that year. They simply drank more beer than usual in 2005. In other years, they slide down the chart.
More importantly, perhaps, while Palauans seem to drink a lot of beer, they don't drink much of anything else. If one looks at the total amount of alcohol consumed - rather than just beer - Palau slips down to 42nd place out of 188. On that measure, the Czech Republic has the dubious honour of occupying the top spot.
The UN's 2012 figures on cannabis use in Palau are more problematic than the WHO's data on beer drinking.
The report's authors could not obtain survey data for adults in Palau. So they used a survey of cannabis use among state high school pupils and extrapolated those results to estimate a figure for the whole adult population.
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