ISSUES
: Drugs
40
Key facts
Key facts
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According to a recent survey, only 2% of pupils who
said their parents did not like them to drink had drunk
alcohol in the last week, compared to 44% of those
whose parents did not mind. (page 4)
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Around one in 12 (8.6%) adults aged 16 to 59 have
taken an illicit drug in the last year. This equates to
around 2.8 million people. (page 5)
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People living in urban areas reported higher levels of
drug use than those living in rural areas. Just under
a tenth (9.1%) of people living in urban areas had
used any drug compared with 6.5% of those living
in rural areas. In addition, higher levels of drug use
are associated with increased frequency of visits to
pubs, bars and nightclubs. (page 5)
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Use of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) in the
last year appears to be concentrated among young
adults aged 16 to 24. Around one in 40 (2.8%) young
adults aged 16 to 24 took an NPS in the last year,
while fewer than one in 100 (0.9%) of 16- to 59-year-
olds had done so. This equates to around 174,000
young adults aged 16 to 24 and 279,000 adults aged
16 to 59. (page 5)
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The use of ecstasy in the last year increased among
16- to 24-year-olds between the 2013/14 and 2014/15
surveys, from 3.9% to 5.4%. This is an increase of
approximately 95,000 young people. (page 5)
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Mephedrone (68%), ecstasy (57%), amphetamines
(50%) and tranquillisers (35%) are the drugs most
likely to be used simultaneously with other drugs.
(page 5)
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In a recent survey, TV was consistently the most
mentioned media source of helpful information about
drugs over the last five years. In 2013, 59% of pupils
mentioned TV as a source of helpful information
about drugs, ahead of the Internet (53%). However,
the impact of the government-funded website
FRANK has fallen in recent years, from 36% in 2009
to 18% in 2013. (page 13)
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A survey published in 2014, which was carried out
by NatCen Social Research finds that 69% of 11- to
15-year-olds say that teachers are a helpful source
of information about taking drugs, up from 63% in
2009. Almost as many pupils (68%) said their parents
were also helpful sources. (page 13)
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Almost two million people across England and Wales
are abusing prescription painkillers either to get high
or relax, according to a survey. (page 13)
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Last year in the Greater Glasgow area, 3,339
individuals who injected SIEDs attended a needle
exchange, in contrast to 7,670 who inject heroin.
(page 16)
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Over 100 new and unpredictable synthetic
substances were recorded in 2014 by the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
(EMCDDA). As a result, the number of deaths linked
to the use of legal highs has escalated eightfold
in three years, according to the Centre for Social
Justice (CSJ). (page 17)
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The number of police incidents involving ‘legal
highs’ has almost trebled across England in a
year, new figures obtained by the Centre for
Social Justice (CSJ) reveal. Incidents soared
across forces – from 1,356 in 2013 to 3,652 in
2014 (an increase of 169 per cent). But the overall
number will be much higher as 12 of England’s 39
police forces did not respond to the freedom of
information request, including the Metropolitan
Police. (page 18)
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Levels of HIV, closely associated with needle
injection around the world, are very low among
British injectors, largely thanks to the harm-
reduction policies pioneered by Norman Fowler
when he was Margaret Thatcher’s Health secretary
in the 1980s. In the USA, up to 20% of injectors
have HIV; in Byisk, in Russia, it’s more than 70%.
But in England, the rate is just over 2%. (page 23)
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In 2000, Portugal decriminalised the use of all illicit
drugs, and developed new policies on prevention,
treatment, harm reduction and reinsertion. (page 28)
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In China, drug possession for personal use is
technically classified as a minor administrative
offence but punishment can be harsh – a 2,000
RMB fine and up to 15 days of administrative
detention. (page 29)
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11.9% of men used drugs in the last year, compared
to 5.4% of women. (page 32)
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In 2014, figures released by the Home Office
showed that illicit drug use in England and Wales
rose by an estimated 230,000 to 2.7 million over
the previous year. Nearly 80 per cent or 180,000 of
the extra users were teenagers and young adults
aged 16 to 24, who made up 1.1 million of the total
number. (page 37)
