In a world of surging youth unemployment, increasingly-wide wealth inequalities, and generation of older citizens working longer implicitly impacting the youth, we thought it perhaps useful to see which nations in the world are the most prone to 'vice'. Bloomberg ranked countries [7] on their propensity for vice, measured by alcohol and cigarette consumption, drug use and gambling levels and found that the Czech Republic and Slovenia top the charts while Zambia and El Salvador are the most virtuous (least vice-prone). The US sits at a 'healthy' 16th in the world overall (just above the UK) but Italy, Spain, and Greece are all more vice-prone; but have no fear as the USA is Number 1 in the world for the annual prevalence of all drug usage.
(click image for large legible version)
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Methodology
The four variables--total adult per capita alcohol consumption, total adult per capita cigarette consumption, annual prevalence of drug use as a percentage of the population ages 15-64, and total gambling losses as a percentage of GDP--were weighted equally.
For alcohol and cigarettes, "adult" includes all residents ages 15 and older.
Drug-use figures cover five equally weighted categories: amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy and opioids (including prescription opioids).
The country with the maximum value in each variable received 25 points for that variable; the country with the minimum value received zero points.
All other countries were scored based on their percentile positions within the maximum-minimum band. Points for each variable were summed for a final score, with a range of 0-100. A higher score indicates a higher propensity for vice.
All data are the latest available. Only countries with data for all categories were included.