Teenagers turn off drugs
Friday July 27th, 2012
Campaigns against drug abuse among teenagers may be having some success, according to new figures published yesterday.
The proportion
of secondary schoolchildren under the age of 16 who say they have tried
drugs is now 17 per cent - compared with 29 per cent ten years ago, according
to the figures.
The fall in drug use includes a halving of cannabis use - just 7.6 per cent reported experience of cannabis within the previous 12 months. This compared with 13.4 per cent in 2001.
The figures, from the Health and Social Care information Centre, show smoking among school pupils at its lowest ever recorded - at 25 per cent.
Just five per cent were regular smokers - compared with ten per cent a decade earlier.
The survey shows experience of alcohol remains high. But just seven per cent were regular drinkers compared with 20 per cent in 2001.
Centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: "The report shows that pupils appear to be leading an increasingly clean-living lifestyle and are less likely to take drugs as well as cigarettes and alcohol.
"The findings also include for the first time more information about where pupils are accessing drugs and we can see they mainly get them from their peers."
* London and the Netherlands are the key centres for use of the clubbers' drug ecstasy, according to a unique European study.
And cocaine
use is highest across western and central Europe compared with the north
and east of the continent.
The findings come from a study of 19 European cities published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
Researchers from Norway and from Milan, Italy, obtained samples from sewers in order to get objective evidence of drug use across the continent.
The study found high use of methamphetamine in Helsinki, Turku, Oslo and Budweis.
And little difference was found in levels of cannabis use across the continent.
The researchers say their technique could be used for systematic monitoring of the level of drug problems in big cities.
Dr Kevin Thomas, of The Norwegian Institute for Water Research in Oslo, said: "There will always be some uncertainty about the reliability of the results of questionnaire-based studies.
"Our research approach based on sewer samples of European cities however, yield very accurate and dependable results on the total amount of drugs used. Through sewer research, we can determine how big the drug market in a city is.
"We can also quickly measure changes in consumption over very short time, such as after a police raid or a customs seizure."
Comparing illicit drug use in 19 European cities through sewage analysis. Kevin V. Thomas, Lubertus Bijlsma, Sara Castiglioni, Adrian Covaci, Erik Emke, Roman Grabic, Félix Hernández, Sara Karolak, Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern, Richard H. Lindberg, Miren Lopez de Alda, Axel Meierjohannk, Christoph Ort, Yolanda Pico, José B. Quintana, Malcolm Reid, Jörg Rieckermann, Senka Terzic, Alexander L.N. van Nuijs, Pim de Voogt; Science of the Total Environment, Volume 432 July 2012; doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.06.069
Tags: Drug and Alcohol Abuse | Europe | Infancy to Adolescence | UK News
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