Alarm Over Teenagers Trying Drugs

The use of hard and soft drugs by 15- and 16-year-olds has soared in the past several years, according to the most comprehensive survey undertaken. New Government strategies were called for last night by one of the authors of the report showing that three times as many young people claim to have tried heroin – widely seen as the most lethal of so-called recreational drugs – as admitted doing so in 1989.

Nearly half of 15- and 16-year-olds admit that they have tried illegal drugs, the survey says, with 38 per cent of the girls and 43-46 per cent of the boys saying they have used cannabis.

Three times as many boys and girls now use ecstasy, perhaps the most wide­spread hard-drug in currency among young people, than admitted using it before.

One of the authors of the new report, Prof Martin Plant, of the department of psychiatry at Edinburgh University, said: “It's not enough to say to young people, It's bad, so don’t do it. We have to re-appraise what is being done in schools.”

Prof Plant and Dr. Patrick Miller conducted their survey in 10 private and 59 state schools. They found that there had been a trebling of teenage experimentation with heroin: 1,5 per cent of girls and 1,7 per cent of boys, compared with 0,5 per cent of 16-year-olds who told researchers seven years ago that they had tried heroin, illicit drugs and glues and solvents

Ten times as many girls and five times as many boys today say they have tried solvents.

Experimentation with amphetamines has risen twelve-fold for girls and more than trebled for boys. Misuse of tranquillisers has also risen sharply: by 8,5 per cent among girls and 5,9 per cent among boys.

The survey in which 7 500 boys and girls were questioned, says that drug-taking, as well as smoking and drinking, is becoming part of normal life for many teenagers.

For the first time the survey looked for differences in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Drug-taking was highest among Scottish boys (59,9 per cent) and lowest among girls from Northern Ireland (18,4 per cent).

Cornelia Oddie, of Family and Youth Concern, said there was some scientific evidence that young brains had not matured sufficiently to take warnings and to use the information responsibly.

The other problem is that young people today spend too much time on their own. Families are not sitting down together to eat, going for walks or watching television together. Even if parents are at home, teenagers are upstairs in their rooms watching videos. Parents are not going to sit in the same room as the children and watch them drink or snort cocaine, without telling them not to.

Other reports in the Britain Medical Journal found the cigarette advertising increased children’s awareness of smoking and that sports sponsorship linked smoking with desirable attributes such as strength and winning cricket matches.

The Cancer Research Campaign immediately renewed its call for the Government to ban cigarette advertising. Its head of education, Jea King, said: “As youth smoking rates continue to increase, especially among girls and in spite of Government targets, we must act now to protect our your people.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said that £33,4 million was being spent on drug treatment and prevention and rehabilitation. Of this, £5 million is on publicity and £1,3 million on a telephone helpline launched a year ago.

Cella Hall. Medical Editor. 2000

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