Secondary school children in England are now more likely to have tried drugs than cigarettes, according to a national survey. The statistics, from NHS Digital, found 24% of 11-15-year-olds saying they had tried recreational drugs at least once in their lives, a nine percentage point rise on the last survey, in 2014.
The survey also found 19% of respondents saying they had smoked cigarettes at least once, a proportion roughly level with 2014 but well below the figure for 1996 when almost half of pupils questioned had tried smoking. And, in 2016, only 6% of pupils were classified as current smokers.
Drugs use among youngsters was shown to have been declining over the past 15 years. Paul Niblett, the statistician responsible for the report, said another survey would be needed to establish whether the figures constituted a change in trend.
Niblett said the rise could be partly explained by new questions on the survey asking youngsters about their use of laughing gas (nitrous oxide) and novel psychoactive substances, which were banned last year under sweeping new legislation.
However, even after stripping out the results from these questions, the survey of 12,000 school children carried out under exam conditions in 177 English schools in 2016, still registered a rise in the proportion admitting using drugs, to 21% – a six percentage point increase on the previous survey.
The survey also found that 44% of secondary school pupils said they had drunk alcohol at some point. There had been a steady decline in the proportion admitting to ever having had an alcoholic drink, since the early 2000s until 2014, when 38% said they had tried alcohol. However, those responsible for the survey said the new figure was not comparable to previous years due to a change in the survey question.
In 2016 the survey found consumption of alcohol related to the age of the children questioned; it ranged from 15% of the 11-year-olds having had a drink, to 73% of those aged 15. Girls were slightly more likely to have ever had a drink than boys, at 46% to 43%.
The headline figure of drug use also disguises differences in age. While only about one in 10 of the 11-year-olds reported ever having taken drugs, 37% of respondents aged 15 said they had.
Black pupils were the most likely to have taken drugs, followed by those of mixed ethnicity, followed by Asians, then white pupils, then others. The picture for drinking prevalence varied; white pupils were the most likely to have ever had an alcoholic drink, followed by mixed, then black, “other” and Asian.
Black girls were far more likely to have tried drugs than black boys, and mixed ethnicity girls were slightly more likely to have taken drugs than boys of that group. Among white children, Asians and others, boys were more likely to have tried drugs.
About half of the pupils questioned had acquired their drugs from a friend on the most recent occasion, with most of those being a friend of the same age. Just over a quarter said they had bought their drugs from a dealer, a proportion that increased with age.
Cannabis was the most commonly used drug, with just over 9% admitting ever having used it, followed by volatile substances (a category including glue, gas, aerosols and solvents) for which just under 9% admitted at least one use.
About 6% admitted having used nitrous oxide, some 3.5% admitted taking stimulants (mostly cocaine and ecstasy), and 2% said they had used psychedelics. Only about one in 200 had ever tried heroin.
Harry Shapiro, director of DrugWise, an online drug information service, agreed that it was too early to say whether the findings showed a new trend. “If you are talking about a seismic shift in drug use, it’s always more than just about drugs,” he said, pointing out that the surge in heroin use in the 1980s coincided with deindustrialisation and economic recession, while the rise of ecstasy use in the 90s came with the emergence of acid house and rave culture.
“It’s all a bit of a wait and see,” he said. “If you get the next two years’ worth going up then something’s going on and I think at that point people will start taking much more of a research interest.
Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which calls for drug law reform, said the findings showed the success of the public health approach to drinking and smoking, compared to the failure of the prohibitory approach towards drug use. “We are actually seeing success of effective regulation of tobacco, relative to failure of the total absence of regulation of drugs. It shows that regulation can work and it shows that public health education can work. So why do we have this wildly different approach for drugs? Effective education has actually denormalised tobacco use.”
