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UK: Generation of young Britons 'threatened by drink and drugs'

Maxine Frith

The Independent

Thursday 23 Oct 2003

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Britain has one of the highest rates of drinking and drug use among young
people in Europe, according to a report.

Ecstasy use among 15 to 34-year-olds is more than twice that of countries
such as Germany and France, and cocaine abuse in the UK has quadrupled in
the past eight years.

Nearly eight out of ten teenagers have been drunk before the age of 16 -
double the proportion of their peers in Italy and Portugal.

Campaigners warned that a culture of binge drinking and recreational drug
use was threatening a generation of young people in Britain. They called
for a Europe-wide improvement in treating addiction and preventing drug and
drink abuse.

Harry Shapiro, of the charity Drugscope, said: "People think that drug use
exploded in the Sixties, but then it was mainly cannabis and confined to
hippies and students.

"The real drugs explosion happened in the 1980s and 1990s, and has
increased to the point we have now, where drugs are generally an
unremarkable feature of the British landscape.

"It is difficult to know how we are going to reverse this trend."

The annual report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction shows that Britain has the highest rate of amphetamine use of the
15 EU countries, with 3.2 per cent of 15 to 34-year-olds admitting they had
used drugs such as speed in the past year.

Only 1.2 per cent of Germans and Dutch people in the same age group had
used the amphetamines.

Cannabis use is also highest in the UK, with more than a third of 15 and
16-year-olds saying they have tried the drug at least once. Three quarters
of the world's cannabis production makes its way into Europe, according to
the report.

Young people in the UK are the second largest users of ecstasy, after
Ireland. The report found that 4.8 per cent had used the class A drug
within the last 12 months.

The report highlighted the problem of soaring cocaine use across Europe.
Use of the drug among 16 to 35-year-olds in Britain has increased from
about one per cent in 1994 to 4.8 per cent in 2002. Only Spain consumes
more cocaine in this age group.

However, ecstasy and cannabis use appears to have reached a peak in
Britain. The proportion of young adults using ecstasy has fallen from a
high of more than five per cent in 2000 to 4.8 per cent in 2002. Cannabis
use has also fallen slightly in the last two years.

The report suggests that the reduction could be due to increased concerns
among young people over the risks of the drugs. It said: "In 1999, the
proportion of students who perceived that the risk associated with trying
ecstasy once or twice was great, was highest in the two member states
(Ireland and the UK) in which lifetime use of ecstasy was also highest, and
where much media coverage was given to a relatively small number of
ecstasy-related deaths."

Mr Shapiro said it was unclear why Britain topped the league tables of
European drug use. "It may be partly down to better recording systems, but
some of it at least is simply historical," he said. "We have always had a
higher rate of drug use, and now it just seems to be accepted."

The study also showed that almost eight out of ten 15 to 16-year-olds have
already been drunk; only Denmark has a worse record. British rates of
teenage drinking are appalling compared to the rest of Europe - only 40 per
cent of French and Italian youngsters have been intoxicated. Drunkenness
among teenagers in Britain has increased year on year since the report
began in 1995.

A spokesman for the charity Alcohol Concern said: "This is the latest in a
series of studies that show that drinking is on the increase among young
age groups.

"It is not surprising, given the binge-drinking culture in this country,
that young people appear to be following, or rather staggering, in their
parents' footsteps.

"Our binge-drinking culture means that somehow being completely drunk is
clever and something to boast about, in a way which is alien to other
countries. We need to change these perceptions if we are going to tackle
Britain's binge drinking culture."

 

 

 

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