Levels of Drug Use Among a Sample of Scottish Schoolchildren

This paper reports on the lifetime prevalence of substance use among a sample of 758 schoolchildren from one Scottish city. The mean age was 13.3 (range 11–16), approximately half the sample were female, virtually all were ethnically white. Just over half (52.6%) of the sample reported lifetime use of tobacco. Alcohol had been consumed by most of the sample with (43.7%) reporting having ever been drunk. About a third of the sample (31.3%) reported ever having used a illegal drug. The drug most likely to be used was cannabis (29.2%). Use of any of the other drugs did not exceed 10%. By age 15 a majority of children in the sample had tried an illegal drug. These schoolchildren also exhibited high levels of awareness about drugs. A substantial proportion had been in situations where drugs were, taken (57.8%) and had themselves been offered drugs (51.6%). They also had friends whom they reported as having personal experience of drugs (57.4%). These data indicate the ubiquitousness of drugs in young people's lives, whether or not they are themselves personally involved in their use.