Teenagers in Northern Ireland are increasingly drinking, smoking and using drugs and have a higher level of substance abuse than those in other parts of the UK, a survey has found.
The report, published by the Department of Health, was based on a questionnaire given to 700 15 and 16-year-olds in 71 secondary schools in 1999. Two-thirds of both boys and girls had drunk alcohol in the previous 30 days, and around half said they had been drunk during that period.
But the report showed that teenagers in the North were actually more likely than those in England and Wales to be non-drinkers.
Compared with a similar survey taken four years previously 7 per cent more boys and girls said they had drunk more than five drinks in a row in the previous 30 days.
The numbers using inhalants had dropped slightly but, with about 28 per cent of boys and 23 per cent of girls having used them, usage was significantly above that in England, Scotland and Wales. This was especially true of boys, who were more than twice as likely to have used inhalants than those in England and Scotland.
The report indicated that a fifth of the students were daily smokers, and that most smokers had tried their first cigarette by the age of 13. Slightly more boys smoked in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK, while the reverse was true for girls. There was no significant change to this pattern since 1995.
The 15and 16-year-olds surveyed indicated a regular consumption of drugs, with 40 per cent of boys and 30 per cent of girls having reported taking cannabis, solvents and ecstasy.
Despite the report's findings that less than 1 per cent of teenagers said they injected drugs, heroin and cocaine use was between 2 and 3 per cent. Around 6 per cent said they had tried ecstasy.
Most drug use involved cannabis. The percentage of girls who had used this drug rose from almost 16 per cent in 1995 to almost 30 per cent in 1999.
Northern Ireland's Drug Strategy Co-ordinator, Ms Jo Daykin, said the survey had a mixed message. "What we have is an increase in our teenagers using illicit drugs, but if you look beyond that fact you see that a lot of that use is experimentation and the level of sustained use is quite low," she said.