Cigarette and alcohol use among 15- and 16-year-olds is declining across Europe but the numbers using cannabis are growing, an EU survey shows.

The Espad report for 2015 includes most EU countries, but not Germany or the UK, and data for Spain is incomplete. 

In 2015 "current smokers" accounted for 21% of those surveyed, and the highest total was in Italy (37%). 

In 1995-2015 those using alcohol in the past 30 days fell from 56% to 47%. Top in cannabis use were the Czechs (37%).

That figure for Czech teenagers reporting a lifetime experience of cannabis was higher than the level in the US - 31% in comparable surveys. 

Despite government budgets in European countries being stretched to the limit, newly released data show that Germany and Austria have continued to spend billions of euros annually on cannabis prohibition.

The German federal government is plowing €5.2 billion to €6.1 billion each year into repressive anti-drug measures, with the lion’s share focused on cannabis, according to data released by the country’s Left party. Charges for selling or growing cannabis make up nearly three-quarters of all registered drug offenses in the country of 80 million residents.

Medicinal Cannabis Sativex and Bedrocan are now available in many European countries, and several have infrastructure in place to supply patients with medicinal cannabis. So which countries are moving with the times, and which are dragging their heels? Where are medicinal and recreational users most (and least) free to utilize their drug of choice? Let’s take a look at the facts.

For those who want to legally grow huge amounts of cannabis in Austria, business is booming — but not yet blooming. 

The Austrian Narcotics Act prohibits the cultivation of cannabis only for the purpose of obtaining narcotics, and THC can be obtained only from cannabis flower. But if you promise your intent isn’t for consumption or sale, and swear you won't let the plants flower, you can buy truckloads of clones. More than 250,000 clones are sold annually in the capital city of Vienna alone.

Amid a growing global trend by governments to decriminalise and legalise drugs, Singapore is standing firm that it will not go down that path.

Senior Minister of State (Home Affairs and National Development) Desmond Lee reinforced the country’s zero-tolerance stance against drugs at a United Nations (UN) event in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday (March 15), speaking at the final negotiations during the 59th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. This meeting comes before April’s UN General Assembly Special Session, a platform for nations to debate the future of global drug policy and review a 10-year global plan started in 2009 against drugs.

A mix of excitement and tension was felt yesterday as leaders from 193 U.N. member States, International Organisations, NGOs and drug experts squeezed into a packed hall this morning in the Vienna International Centre to mark the opening of the 59th U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

For many decades in the U.S., marijuana has been painted as the psychedelic drug of hippies and stoners who lay around smoking dope to the detriment of their cognitive function. This image of marijuana use can certainly be attributed to one aspect of its culture, but Cannabis — a category of plants that include three species and seven sub-species — have been used in medicine for thousands of years.

VIENNA (AP) — Vienna police say they have discovered a plantation with more than 700 marijuana plants at a warehouse close to a police dog center.

Police say one of their dogs caught a whiff of the plants in the Austrian capital's Floridsdorf district on Friday morning. Officers then saw a man taking a hose into the warehouse and searched the premises, finding 734 cannabis plants.

They said in a statement Saturday they also found 32 sacks stuffed with deep-frozen marijuana and a bag full of dried marijuana at the 27-year-old suspect's apartment.

Police say the man is denying wrongdoing. Spokesman Roman Hahslinger told the Austria Press Agency the suspect comes from outside Vienna and might not have known that a police facility was nearby.

One almost never sees potent cannabis plants flowering in public and while this was a common sight almost everywhere only 80 years ago, it is now banned in most corners of the earth. Until recently, the Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museums in Amsterdam and Barcelona, the Cannabis College in Amsterdam, the Hemp Museum in Berlin, and the Museo Della Civilta Contadina in Bologna were the only places in the world either solely devoted to the heyday of cannabis, or actually permitted to display real cannabis plants.