Child use of drink, drugs and tobacco on increase 

MORE children as young as 11 are smoking, drinking and taking drugs despite govern­ment initiatives to improve the health of young people, according to a Department of Health report.

Preliminary findings of the report, based on a survey of 7, 000 pupils aged 11 to 15 in 225 schools in England, reported that recent decreases in under-age smoking, drinking and drug-staking were being reversed. It found that nine per cent of teenagers surveyed last year had used drugs in the past month, a rise of two per cent from 1998. The number who had experimented in the past year increased from 11 per cent to 14 per cent.

The use of drugs increased with age, with three per cent of 11-year-olds taking drugs in the past year compared with 29 per cent of those aged 15.

Cannabis was by far the most popular drug - 12 per cent had used it in the past   year. One per cent had used heroin or methadone, and four per cent had experi­mented with drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines.

Smoking figures revealed that increasing numbers of teenagers were ignoring the dangers of nicotine. After a fall from 13 per cent to nine per cent between 1996 and 1999, the proportion of teen­agers who described them­selves as regular smokers rose to 10 per cent last year.

The habit was more preva­lent among teenage girls, with 12 per cent smoking at least one cigarette a week compared with nine per cent of boys.

The Government has set a target to reduce the number children aged 11 to 15 who smoke regularly to 11 per cent by 2005 and nine per cent by 2010.

But Clive Bates, director of Action on Smoking and Health, accused the Govern­ment of " dragging its feet" on tobacco policy.

" Teenage smoking is a slow-burning health tragedy. Many of these youngsters will be the cancer and heart patients of the future, " he said.                                 

" Despite having a White Paper on smoking in December 1998, the Government has been slow to implements its measures, including the ban on tobacco advertising and measures to reduce smoking in public places. "

The report also pointed to a rise in the proportion of young drinkers. Almost a quarter of the pupils said they had had an alcoholic drink in the previous week, compared with 21 per cent in 1999 and 27 per cent in 1996. At the age of 11, only five per cent had drunk in the previous week. This rose to almost a half by the age of 15. Teenage drinkers said that on average they drank 10-4 units a week, the equivalent of almost six pints of beer.

A spokesman for the char­ity Alcohol Concern said: " This confirms the worrying trend of increasing alcohol consumption among younger people:

" It reinforces our belief that there needs to be much more emphasis on education

and prevention in terms of making people more aware of the dangers of alcohol mis­use. Young bodies are just not made for drinking alco­hol and children and parents need more education and information. "

The report, which will be published in full in the autumn, follows previous research that said British teenagers were the heaviest drinkers, smokers and drug takers in Europe.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Government remained on course to meet its smok­ing targets. But he added: " We are concerned by the small increase in the percentage of young people who have used drugs in the past month and in the past year.

" We are encouraged that the percentage of pupils reporting use of heroin and cocaine, the drugs that cause the greatest harm, has remained low. " He said the rise in teenage drinking would be closely monitored. [28]

                                             COMPREHENSION

1. Answer the following questions.

1. Are government initiatives to improve the health of British young people successful?
2. At what age do many young people start taking drugs?
3. What drugs were the most popular among teenagers surveyed?
4. What was smoking called in the article and why?
5. What is a White Paper?
6. How was the position of the government characterized in the article?
7. Did alcohol consumption among youngsters increase or decrease?
8. How were British teenagers described in the report?
9. What else were the members of the government concerned about?

                                            FOLLOW-UP

Find out and discuss in your group the situation with drug, alcohol consumption and smoking among the teenagers in Belarus.

                                ADDITIONAL TEXTS

            DRUG USE IS A PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM

President George Bush is known for prizing loyalty and he wastes no time showing it to an old friend from Texas, Rafael Palmeiro, a baseball star being suspended from the game for steroid use.

The use of steroids has been a lurid political issue in Congress in 2005 with hearings and several bills proposed to strengthen enforcement among professional athletes. Many are concerned about the effect on young athletes, among whom steroid use has reached rampant levels in high- school competition.

Anti-doping laxity was claimed to be a big reason that baseball was dismissed as an Olympic sport. With the latest revelations about the game, in particular the Palmeiro’s case, America’s national pastime is under pressure to clean up its house.

Mr. Bush made steroid use among professional athletes a political issue in his 2004 State of the Union address. At stake, he said, were the impressionable minds of America’s youth, who were beginning to believe that “performance is more important than character” and called on all involved “to send the right signal, to get tough and to get rid of steroids now”.

Dr. Charles Yesalis, an expert at Penn State University, estimates that up to 1 million teenagers have used steroids and that it has been part of a trend that goes back for decades.

“The only public health problem we have is not the couple of thousand elite athletes that are using in this country, because by definition that’s not a public health problem, ” Dr Yesalis said. “But when you have up to a million kids using these drugs, now you’ve got a public health problem”.

Republican vice-chairman of the House committee on government reform called the 10-game suspension imposed on Palmeiro a ‘vacation” and said he intended to move forward his sponsored legislation that would increase penalties to an automatic 2-year suspension after the first offence, and a life-time ban after a player was caught a second time. [29]