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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Youngsters high on excess
Channel 4 News
Saturday 27 Aug 2005 Shock new figures show just how prevalent drinking, smoking and drug use is among underage youngsters in England, with one in ten admitting they take drugs and 25 per cent saying they drink on a regular basis. One in ten 11 to 15-year-olds admitted using cannabis, while one in 20 confessed to having sniffed glue, gas and other volatile substances. Around one in 10 respondents said they are regular smokers, getting through more than 40 cigarettes a week. And just under a quarter often drink alcohol, with boys swigging back more than girls. They are the results of a Department of Health survey into illegal underage habits. The report threw up several surprising results, and many comforting, but the main indication appears to be that youngsters are indulging in the same activities as always, but to a greater degree than in previous generations. On smoking, among the results were that only one per cent of 11-year-olds were regular smokers compared with 21 per cent of 15-year-olds - a figure far higher than the government target of reducing the percentage of underage smokers to less than 10. In the early 1980s, boys and girls were equally likely to smoke. Since then, girls have been consistently more likely to smoke than boys. In the past year, 10 per cent of girls were regular smokers, compared with seven per cent of boys. Eleven per cent of pupils had smoked in the last seven days, eight per cent of boys and 14 per cent of girls. Although girls were more likely to smoke than boys, boys and girls smoked similar numbers of cigarettes. Regular smokers of both sexes had smoked an average of 42 cigarettes in the last seven days. When it came to their families' attitudes to them smoking, 89 per cent of respondents felt their family would disapprove. Within that figure, 67 per cent of pupils felt that their families would try to stop them smoking and 22 per cent thought their families would try to persuade them to stop. When it came to booze, the average weekly consumption of alcohol in the last week increased from 5.3 units in 1990 to 10.4 in 2000, and has remained around that level since. In the current survey, pupils who drank in the last week consumed an average of 10.7 units Thirty eight per cent of pupils had been in a pub in the last four weeks. This increased with age from 25 per cent of 11-year-olds - with most of them stating they had not drunk but were with parents or family - to 50 per cent of 15 year olds. Almost half (46 per cent) of the pupils had been drunk in the last week, with a higher proportion of girls than boys reporting this (50 per cent of the girls compared with 42 per cent of the boys). Among pupils who had drunk alcohol in the last week, 31 per cent had deliberately tried to get drunk. On the issue of drugs, boys were more likely than girls to have taken drugs in the last year (18 per cent compared with 17 per cent) and the last month (11 per cent compared with 9 per cent). Overall, 26 per cent of pupils had ever taken any drug, down from 30 per cent in 2003 - a figure likely to hearten health workers. Among 11-year-olds, three per cent had taken drugs in the last month and five per cent in the last year; the corresponding proportions among 15-year-olds were 21 per cent and 32 per cent. In the first survey since cannabis was reclassified from Class B to Class C, 11 per cent of pupils had taken cannabis in the last year, down from 13 per cent in 2003. A statistic that will add weight to those who said decriminalisation would not necessarily lead to increased use. The prevalence of taking cannabis in the last year increased with age from one per cent of 11-year-olds to 26 per cent of 15-year-olds. Similarly, the prevalence of taking Class A drugs increased from less than 0.5 per cent of 11-year-olds to eight per cent of 15-year-olds. Overall, five per cent of all pupils said that they usually took drugs once a month or more. Surprisingly, given some of the answers, most pupils agreed with a range of statements about the negative effects of smoking, and more than 95 per cent agreed that smoking caused lung cancer, made clothes smell, harmed unborn babies and harmed non-smokers' health. The information was obtained from 9,715 pupils in 313 schools throughout England during the autumn term of 2004.
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