The attitude of NI's younger population to drugs and booze has been examined in a new analysis, just published.

It is presenting key findings from a secondary analysis of the earlier 2007 Young Persons' Behaviour and Attitudes Survey on drugs, solvents, alcohol and smoking in Northern Ireland - and it has shown a decrease in use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

The secondary analysis was carried out by Social Market Research (SMR) on behalf of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.

This analysis examines lifetime, last year and last month use of a range of drugs, including solvents. It also examines age first used, regularity of use, and number of times pupils used these drugs or solvents and alcohol consumption and smoking.

However, it is in comparisons between 2003 and 2007 that things look interesting with - for example - the proportion of pupils who reported ever having used any drugs or solvents decreased from 23.0% in 2003 to 18.9% in 2007.

Decreases were also found since the previous survey in the last year (from 17.9% to 13.4%) and last month (from 11.5% to 7.5%) use of any drugs or solvents.

Since 2003, decreases were found in the lifetime, last year and last month use of cannabis and magic mushrooms while the use of poppers has increased across all three time periods.

The proportion of pupils who reported that they have consumed alcohol at some point in their lives has decreased from 59.9% in 2003 to 55.1% in 2007.

Since 2003, lifetime use of alcohol has decreased for both boys (from 60.8% to 55.3%) and girls (from 59.1% to 55.5%).

The proportion of pupils who reported that they have ever smoked tobacco has decreased from 32.7% in 2003 to 24.2% in 2007.

In terms of substances being used, cannabis (9%) and solvents (8%) were the two most commonly reported substances ever used by pupils; they were also the two most commonly reported substances used by pupils in the last year (7% and 4% respectively) and in the last month (4% and 2% respectively).

On drinking alcohol, over half (55%) of pupils in Years 8 to 12 had consumed alcohol at some point.

Boys (55%) were just as likely as girls (56%) to have ever taken an alcoholic drink and again, younger pupils were less likely than older pupils to have ever consumed alcohol (28% of those aged 12 or younger compared to 81% of those aged 16 or older).

Of those pupils who had taken an alcoholic drink, 55% had consumed so much alcohol that they were drunk.

A larger proportion of girls (58%) than boys (51%) who had consumed alcohol reported that they had been drunk at least once.

On smoking, nearly one quarter of pupils in Years 8 to 12 have ever smoked tobacco with a larger proportion of girls (27%) than boys (21%) reported having ever smoked.

(BMcC/JM)