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This survey provides estimates on the proportion of young people aged 11-15 who smoke, drink alcohol or take illegal drugs. The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) carried out the survey on behalf of the NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre and the Home Office.

The most recent publication presents headline figures from a survey of 8,200 secondary schoolchildren aged 11-15 in England in the autumn term of 2006, with an emphasis on drug taking. Further details will be published in August 2007.

The key findings for 2006 include:¹

• 9% of pupils had taken drugs in the last month. This was a decrease from 11% in 2005.
• 17% of pupils aged 11 to 15 had taken drugs in the last year, down from 19% in 2005.
• Similar proportions of boys and girls had taken drugs in the last year (17% boys, 16% girls), however boys were more likely to have taken drugs in the last month (10% boys, 8% girls).
• The prevalence of drug taking increased with age: 6% of 11 year olds had taken drugs in the last year, compared with 29% of 15 year olds.
• The most commonly used drug was cannabis - 10% of pupils had used it within the last year.
• 5% of pupils reported taking volatile substances in the last year, a decrease from 7% in 2005.
• 4% of pupils reported having used class A drugs in the last year, the most commonly reported being cocaine (1.6%), ecstasy (1.6%) or magic mushrooms (1.4%).
• 4% of pupils said that they took drugs at least once a month, a decrease from 6% in 2005.

This report may be downloaded from the Health and Social Care Information Centre website at www.ic.nhs.uk.

Reference

1. NHS Health and Social Care Information Centre. (2007) Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2006: headline figures. www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/drugsmokedrinkyoungeng2005/finalreport.pdf/file Accessed 5 April 2007.