Conor Stewart
Research expert covering health & pharmaceuticals in the UK & Europe
Get in touch with us nowIncrease in youth drug use
The prevalence of drug use among adults has remained stable over the last decade. However, a rise in monthly drug use among adolescents over the last five years was reported, with levels returning to a prevalence last witnessed in 2005. In England in 2018, a survey found that 21 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls aged 15 years admitted taking drugs in the last month. The most commonly offered drug to school children in England was cannabis with almost a quarter of children reporting they had ever been offered the drug, followed by cocaine, and crack.Drug deaths in the UK
In the United Kingdom, drug misuse is one of the major reasons for fatalities of people aged between 16 and 40 years. In 2019, over 2.3 thousand deaths among males and 983 deaths among females in England occurred due to accidental poisoning by drugs, medicaments, and biological substances. Opioids, particularly heroin, remain linked with the highest health and social harm caused by illicit drug use in the United Kingdom. Political discussions have taken place in the UK regarding the decriminalization of drugs and treating the possession of drugs as a public health issue rather than a criminal one to reduce drug-related deaths. In Portugal, the decriminalization of drugs has worked to massively reduce drug overdose deaths and HIV diagnoses linked to injecting drug use.
