Trends in the Use and Misuse of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Drugs in the United Kingdom: some perplexing connections

Summary Some of the initial results are presented of a continuing study. This is designed to review the patterns of association between the use and misuse of alcohol and other drugs, together with indicators of health, crime, social and economic trends. It is suggested that conventional correlational analysis is of little value in indicating the ‘real’ connection between variables measured on the basis of time series data. The use of ‘differencing’ and time lag correlations are briefly examined but it is concluded that some relationships remain very difficult to determine.