The number of people asking for help with addiction to heroin and other opiates in the Netherlands fell 25% to 13,000 between 2001 and 2006, according to the government’s latest drugs monitor.

And the proportion of young addicts has gone down from 39% in 1994 to just 6% 12 years later, the report, by the Trimbos institute, said.
However, the number of people seeking help for problems with cannabis has gone up more than three-fold over the same period to 6,544. The increase is partly due to improved treatment for people with soft drugs problems as well as to a greater awareness of its addictive properties, the institute said.
And the number of children aged under-16 who were hospitalised with alcohol problems rose from 263 in 2001 to 482 in 2006.