Here's where major BS comes in. In Macedonia, we have age old tradition. This means parents can beat your ass to a bloody pulp in the middle of the street if they know you drink or smoke and they don't want you to, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Hell, other parents might even join in on your public whipping. This is why most Macedonian kids and teenagers deny drinking and smoking when any adult asks them, let alone a survey which is a magnet for attracting public attention.
Western European teenagers, on the other hand, being the softer version of North American teens, brag as much as North American teens, if not more, especially when it comes to times when they've broken the laws, and especially when it comes to alcohol, ciggerettes or drugs. In Toronto, a survey was done where it said 2,000 highschoolers admitted to bringing a gun to school.
First off, if you actually bring or have brung a gun to school, you should never fuckin' admit it unless you're a complete jackass.
Second, as I said, bragging and boosting but it's all BS.
The fact of the matter is I had 3 of the pussies nerdiest weakest kids in my crew come to my house drunk at 9 pm from 2 fucking beers a week ago, drunk as fucking rockets, and they are weaker than a fucking puppy, and gullible, too.
I had one of the strongest kids in my crew at that very same time the same guy who gets the most pussy and interacts the most with the delinquent and criminal crews out of anyone of us, who has the most experiance with alcohol ciggerettes fighting and sex, they all just fell back on my bed, one of them fell down on the floor from my bed my laptop being next to my bed and the strong guy sitting on the bed being on my laptop chatting on MSN.
So the strong guy just took him by his shirt and lifted him up with one hand and threw him on the bed, lol the kid choked while the guy picked him up.
You know how much shit has happened that stays within the limits of our crew or the people present at the incident? A brutal drunken fight happened between two of my closest friends over a girl, one being the drunk guy, the next morning one friend comes(it was summer) with cuts and bruises all over his chest, stomach, legs and arms. Up to this day he has no fucking idea what happened and I tried asking a thousand times but everyone kept quiet like they killed and buried someone in the sticks.
If you actually do something considered bad and that has concequences, you deny it. If you don't do it and people don't believe you do it, you brag about it.
Alcohol and ciggerettes? I've done them. I actually want to do them again but my stupid crew isn't willing to get together and juggle down on brandy for some reason they're taking a break, and me smoking ciggerettes for them means a risk I could go into the delinquent/criminal mode and they would cease to able to have power over me and my actions(LOL you don't wanna know what kind of crap I do when I don't give a fuck about concequences like oh say pain), but everyone in my 15 person crew has drunk. Every single kid I know has drunk.
The only thing European or North American kids would do more is smoke marijuana or have sex at a younger age(13) and at a bigger number. Shyness is a bitch, isn't it?
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Macedonia's teens smoke and drink less than their EU friends, but...
Macedonian adolescents smoke and drink less than European peers, but use more sedatives.
According to data of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), 57 percent of Macedonian adolescents have tried alcohol compared to 82 percent of European peers. A total of 32 percent of Macedonian teenagers consume alcohol, whereas the European average is 51 percent.
In reality: 100 percent of Macedonian adolescents have tried alcohol, 90 percent still consume it, 50 percent on a regular basis. Less than half of European kids have tried alcohol, less than 20 percent consume it.
Fifty-eight percent of adolescents in Macedonia smoke cigarettes, which is less than the 68-percent average among European peers. Moreover, 8 percent of Macedonians at the age of 16-18 have tried marijuana, compared to the European average of 16 percent.
In reality: 80-90 percent of Macedonian kids have tried ciggerettes, the other percentage is right though, both on how many smoke and how many tried marijuana.
According to survey data, 7 percent of Macedonian adolescents use sedatives, which is a bit larger than the European average (6 percent).(WTF)
ESPAD is a collaborative effort of independent research teams in about 40 European countries and the largest cross-national research project on adolescent substance use in the world. ESPAD results for each country are based on research at a sample not below 2,500. //04.02.09 MiNa
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/6204/2/
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Price doesn't matter right, I mean a glass of brandy here costs 60 MKD or 1 Euro, $1.25. A pack of Rodeo ciggerettes costs 40 MKD(1 dollar), 70 MKD for Boss ciggerrettes and 120 MKD(2 Euros or $3.25) for a pack of Malboros. A bottle of brandy, scotch, vodka, you name it, 40 percent, costs about 600 MKD, 10 Euros or 15 dollars, that's for about a litre, so it's pretty much the same prices as in LCBO in Toronto when it comes to wine and hard liquor.
Supply and demand as well as image/opinion is different; you can smoke in public, you can smoke in bars and nightclubs and resturaunts, the only place you can't smoke is hospitals and schools. Hell, you can smoke in city hall and at gas stations. You can't drink in public, however, but you can stroll around drunk as fuck in public and regular people won't complain(10 pm and later is a recommended time), and if the police don't notice you you have no problem, but if they do and you make a fucking loud noise and shit, a ruckus, you're fucked. All stores, resturaunts, bars and nightclubs used to sell hard liquor to minors, but with Europeanization; a law was brought in for stores to be able to sell liquor only up to 7 pm, then fines got more tougher(avoid what you can't pay off) so alot of stores avoid selling it, and unless people know you, most nightclubs won't sell you alcohol because of constant police raids for minors, bars and resturaunts as well because of tougher fines and hell the government closes down crap.
It's worth more for the people in everyone's eyes, including the government, to have softer people because of less alcohol and ciggerettes meaning less drunkedness and less willingness to do 'bad' acts, than to have tons of money. I mean, most people here are wealthy as fuck, so whatever.
