Cannabis indica as a motivation for foreign travel by Polish citizens

Abstract

<jats:p>Based on an anonymous on-line questionnaire survey, conducted among 1000 respondents, the authors present their demographic, socio-economic and spatial profile, their attitude to cannabis and the tourist trips they went on (scale, directions, destinations), involving cannabis consumption. Tourist trips of this kind were attractive to quite a large number of young people, mostly inhabiting large Polish cities, who usually had used and continued to use this drug. Trips inspired by cannabis were most often made to the nearby Czech Republic and Netherlands, as well as (less frequently) to Spain.</jats:p>

Cannabis consumers in Poland

“…Such social and territorial environments are the first to adopt new behavior patterns from the outside. For Polish cannabis consumers the distribution of the place of their residence concentrates around the largest urban centers (Matczak, Pawlicki, 2016). This points to the penetration of cannabis consumption, along with the progressing suburbanization of rural areas surrounding the largest metropolises.…”

“…The respondents mainly lived in large cities, especially in those with more than 0.5 million inhabitants (Warsaw, Cracow, Łódź, Wrocław and Poznań -36.5% of all respondents in total) and in other major cities (in the Śląskie Voivodeship, Szczecin, Gdańsk and others). All these cities are large, with well-developed services providing the best prospects for working, learning (large academic centers), entertainment (night life) and easy access to various stimulants (Matczak, Pawlicki, 2016). Few respondents came from small towns and rural areas.…”

Tourism of Polish cannabis consumers

“…It was reported in previous studies that the category of drug tourists mostly includes people at the age between 15 and 34 who study and/or work (Uriely, Belhassen, 2005;Grobe, Lűer, 2011;EMCD-DA, 2012;Motyka, 2016;Matczak, Pawlicki, 2016). Males are twice as likely as females to become drug tourists.…”