Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in England, 2023

Evidence has demonstrated immediate and long term risks to young people’s health and wellbeing associated with the use of legal and illegal drugs. These risks vary with the type of drug taken.

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (2006): Pathways to problems.

There are particular concerns about the relationship between drug use and mental health problems among young people. For example, there is evidence to suggest that young people who use recreational drugs run the risk of damage to mental health including suicide, depression, psychotic symptoms and disruptive behaviour disorders^1,2. Addressing the use of drugs, particularly amongst young people, has long been a focus of government policy due to the awareness and concern over the harms described above.

This part covers the prevalence of drug use, factors associated with drug use in the last year, and the availability and awareness of drugs.

The questionnaire covered the following drugs or types of drugs: amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, crack, ecstasy, heroin, ketamine, LSD, magic mushrooms, mephedrone, methadone, poppers (e.g. amyl nitrite), tranquillisers, volatile substances such as gas, glue, aerosols and other solvents, new psychoactive substances (NPS), nitrous oxide and ‘other’ drugs (not obtained from a doctor or chemist).

Increase in drug prevalence since 2016

The following changes/issues have affected this part of the report, specifically drug prevalence measures relating to: ever taken drugs, taken drugs in the last year and taken drugs in the last month (tables 8.1 to 8.8):

• NPS (previously known as legal highs), and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) were added to the list of drugs included for overall drug prevalence measures in 2016. Both are covered by the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 which restricts the production, sale and supply of such substances. When psychoactive substances are removed from the 2016 measure, the overall drug prevalence figure (table 8.6c) falls by 3 percentage points (24.3% to 21.3%). This adjusted version is shown in the time series data in tables 8.6 to 8.8.
• In 2016, even when accounting for the addition of NPS to the measures, there was a large and unexpected rise in overall drug use prevalence; 14.6% in 2014, to 24.3% in 2016 and 23.7% 2018. Further investigations identified that some of this change was driven by an increased likelihood of pupils not answering questions on whether they had tried individual drugs. Neither the reason for this, nor exactly how much of the change in prevalence this accounts for is clear, though some level of genuine increase is evident.
• In 2023, moving the survey online made routing easier for pupils to accurately record whether they had tried each individual drug as they option of 'prefer not to say' was only presented as an option if the responder tried to move forward with the survey without providing a valid response. This may have caused a small drop in the prevalence of pupils who have ever taken drugs, when compared to earlier years.

All drug prevalence measures presented in this report are directly comparable between 2016 and 2023. However, for the reasons outlined above, it is not recommended that direct comparisons are made with drug prevalence data prior to 2016. See the Data Quality Statement (Coherence and Comparability) for further details.

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^{1. British Medical Association, Board of Science and Education, London (2003): Adolescent Health,}

^{2. Patton G et al (2002): Cannabis use and mental health in young people: cohort study.} 

Pupils who have ever taken drugs, by year

In 2023, 13% (confidence interval 11-14%) of pupils reported they had ever taken drugs, down from 18% in 2021.

For more data relating to this section:

Tables 8.1 and 8.4 to 8.6d, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

Pupils who have taken drugs in the last year, by year

9% (confidence interval 8-10%) of pupils said that they had taken any drugs in the last year.

For more data relating to this section:

Tables 8.2, 8.4, 8.5 and 8.6e to 8.6h, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

Pupils who have taken drugs in the last month, by year

In 2023, 5% (confidence interval 4-6%) of pupils said that they had taken drugs in the last month, similar to the proportion in 2021 (6%).

Factors associated with taking drugs in the last month

A logistic regression model was used to explore which characteristics might be associated with having taken any drugs in the last month. This identifies associations, not causes; in other words, factors which identify pupils with an increased or decreased likelihood of having taken drugs in the last month. See Appendix B3 for more information on the regression model used.

The 6 factors (explanatory variables) shown below had a significant association with having taken any drugs in the last month. The size of the circles represents an estimate of the relative contribution to the model. See Appendix B3.4 for details of how this has been determined (additionally data table 8.10 shows the odds ratios for each possible value of each variable in the model).

It was estimated that using e-cigarettes had the strongest association, followed by drinking alcohol, and then playing truant.

For more data relating to this section:

Tables 8.3 to 8.5, 8.6i to 8.6l and 8.10, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

Pupils who had ever been offered any drugs, by gender

In 2023, 28% of the pupils reported that they had been offered at least one of the drugs asked about.

Whilst 27% of boys and girls had ever been offered drugs, this was higher for pupils of another gender identity (46%).

For more data relating to this section:

Table 8.21 to 8.22d, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

Drug types taken in last year, by year

For this question, pupils were able to state more than one drug type.  The chart below shows only the most common responses. For the full list see data table 8.6h. 

Cannabis is the drug that pupils are most likely to have taken in the last year, with 6% saying they had done so in 2023. This is the same proportion as in 2021.

The proportion of pupils that have taken new psychoactive substances decreased from 2% in 2021 to 0.6% in 2023.

The proportion saying they had taken a class A drug has been around 2% to 3% since 2010.

For more data relating to this section:

Tables 8.6a - 8.9 and 8.11 - 8.14, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

This analysis was based only on pupils who had ever taken drugs. It represents both the first occasion a pupil used drugs, and any other types of drugs used when the pupil was at that age. Pupils were able to state more than one drug type.

Drugs taken at age of first drug use

Pupils’ early experience of drug use was most likely to involve cannabis (48%) or volatile substances (33%).  14% took a class A drug at the age of first drug use.

The chart below shows only the most common responses (for the full list see data table 8.28). 

For more data relating to this section:

Tables 8.28 and 8.29, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people, 2023

The Crime Survey for England and Wales provides information on drug use for adults aged 16 or over. In the year ending March 2023, almost one in five adults aged 16 to 24 years had taken a drug in the last year. This represented a decrease compared with the year ending March 2020 (21.0%), which was largely a result of falls in cannabis use (from 18.7% to 15.4%) in this age group.

Drug misuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2023

Estimates for Scotland are available from the Health and Wellbeing Census, which questions pupils in a classroom setting but only surveys pupils in S2 and S4 (roughly equivalent to Year 9 and Year 11 in England). It reports that in 2021/22 9.6% of S4 pupils said that they had ever taken drugs, and of these pupils 19.4% said they currently take drugs once a week or more. 

Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland 2021- 2022

Estimates from Wales are available from the Welsh government Student Health and Well-being Survey, which covers children aged 11 to 16. In 2021/22 the survey reported that 12% of young people reported having ever used drugs in their lifetime with laughing gas (nitrous oxide) and cannabis the most commonly used drugs.

Student Health and Well-being Survey

Results from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) reported that there were 12,418 young people in contact with alcohol and drug services between April 2022 and March 2023, 10% increase from the previous year but a 13% reduction in the number in treatment since 2019 to 2020.

National Drug Treatment Monitoring System: Substance misuse treatment for young people: 2022 to 2023