More alarming health stats

[lettie]

Well folks, it's that time of year again. The time when I'm snooping around into what's going on in the world of health. As promised, this year I'm looking at substance misuse and oh boy!!! isn't there a lot of it about. Here's a few facts and figures:-

In 2003 12% of 16- 59 year olds had taken at least one illicit drug (figures from the Home Office National Crime Survey) These figures showed cannabis to be the most widely used drug.
In 2002 the Dept of health conducted a survey amongst school children aged 11-15. There were 9000 children from 285 different schools surveyed and it showed that an alarming 29% of these children had tried one or more drugs, again cannabis came out tops.
Now I know that surveys can be a bit hit and miss and do rely on people answering honestly, but these rough figures are a tad higher than I'd expected (good job they didn't include fags and booze, as that would probably be nigh on 100%)

Here are just a few categories for the most commonly used in this country.

Depressants - Heroin, Cannabis, Alcohol, GHB (Gamma Hydroxybutyrate) Methodone,

Stimulants - Caffeine, Nicotine, Amphetamine, Ecstasy (MDMA) Cocaine, Crack, Khat.

Hallucinogens - LSD, Magic mushrooms, solvents

Sedatives - Benzodiazepines

Anaesthetics - PCP (Angel Dust) Ketamine (veterinary anaesthetic can be snorted or taken orally)

Miscellaneous - Poppers (Nitrites) Anabolic steroids

With the exception of the legal stuff in that list, there's still quite a lot to go at. The most popular drug after cannabis is cocaine, in terms of amount of users. Heroin and methodone are relatively low in popularity in comparison to cannabis and cocaine. Some of these drugs fluctuate in price and availability and that impacts on the trends. Most of these things are relatively easy to get hold of and some of our localish dealers have special offers where you can get 2 £10 bags of heroin and a rock of crack for a fiver (half the going rate for a rock) I was quite shocked to find that one out.
The only advice I could give to any parent of a teenager out there is to talk to your kids. Make sure that they understand the negative health effects that some of these substances can cause. There are plenty of websites out there that can give you the health risks of drug use. There's nothing worse than hearing the "my child wouldn't do that" attitude only to find them overdosed on something bad. That happened to a mate of mines kid.....