When it comes to substance abuse, Bosnia is no different than the rest of the region, said Julijan Komsic from IPSOS agency whose study showed that Bosnia's Serb-dominated region was more prone to alcohol abuse than the Bosniak-Croat shared Federation region, where residents are more prone to non-medical use of drugs.

The surveyed population showed that men are much more prone to alcohol than women, regardless of the frequency of use.

The least respondents said they drank alcohol four or more times per week, with most saying they drink it once a month.

Regarding the drug abuse, the survey showed that women are more prone to use tranquillisers, sleeping pills or pain medication than men.

The survey also showed that 35 percent of respondents are active smokers, 11.6 percent said they quit smoking and 52.1 were non-smokers.

According to Komsic, men are more prone to tobacco use than women, and looking at age groups, 29.6 percent of all those aged 15 to 34 said they are active smokers, while 64.3 said they never smoked.

Younger men said they were more prone to illegal drug abuse than women and older population in general.IPSOS said that the most abused illegal substance was cannabis (4.1 percent of all the respondents), extasy was used by 0.6 percent, 0.9 percent of all respondents said they used amphetamines, 0.2 percent used heroin, while 0.1 percent said they used LSD at least once in their life.

The survey aimed to show the extent to which the Bosnian population consumed tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs, drugs for non-medical use, as well as new substances which can be easily purchased over the counter.

It was financed by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and it represents the first survey of this kind to be made on the territory of the entire country.