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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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40% of teenagers have tried cannabis Fenton Bresler Evening Standard Monday 22 Nov 1999 Up to 40% of teenage schoolchildren in England and Wales have tried cannabis - the highest rate in the EU, according to a report today. The EU's drugs monitoring agency survey found that 40% of 15 and 16-year-olds in the two countries have tried the drug at least once. More schoolchildren in England and Wales have also tried solvent abuse such as glue sniffing than their EU counterparts, although at 20% the rate is half that for cannabis. Although no direct link is made by the report, it also found that 2% of British teenagers have even experimented with heroin, also the worst record in Europe. But the Lisbon based agency's report on drug prevalence, usage patterns and responses by the authorities said that cannabis use among the young in England and Wales "has stabilised or even decreased", whereas it is still on the rise in parts of Europe where drug abuse used to be rare. The schoolchildren appear to be imitating their elders. Across the wider population more people were found to have used cannabis in England and Wales in the last 12 months than in any other country. About 9% of the adult population took it, compared to 1% in Sweden. The agency's report estimates that 40 million of the EU's 375 million total population have tried cannabis, while as many as 5 million "could have tried heroin". Although the number of addicts and other problem drug users has also increased slightly to an estimated 1.5 million EU-wide, the report attributed the rise to new or improved estimates from EU members. In general, the report says the drug problem "appears to be largely stable" with new cases of users simply keeping pace with the number of people giving up drugs or dying. Ecstasy, amphetamine and LSD use in Britain is thought to be still higher than anywhere else in the EU along with Ireland and the Netherlands, although the report said that the popularity of ecstasy in the UK was declining from the peak in the mid 90s when over a million doses were being taken in dance clubs every weekend. There is some comfort for Britain, however, in the report over its success in fighting heroin dealing and the associated risk of contracting HIV from sharing infected needles. Almost half of all the heroin seized in the EU in 1997 - roughly six tonnes - was intercepted in Britain, which has consistently topped the league of drug seizures since 1995. And the report said that drug-related HIV infection rates amongst intravenous drug users were just 1% in Britain compared to 32% in Spain.
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