The EMCDDA have been trying to work out how much European countries spend on drug related services. It’s not easy, as they point out:

drug services usually do not stand in isolation and form part of many publicly-funded programmes including education and crime reduction and other services that provide support to problem drug users.

Labelled drug expenditure

Furthermore, they’re also having to look at various levels of government spending:

while a large portion of public money may be voted for central government support for community development, this same money may then be disbursed for expenditure to a range of regional or local programmes or projects, which may be coded to a specific health-related or education-related activity.

Apparently the UK is the only country that labels its explicit drug education spend (it’s 1.3% which compares with 24% that is spent on public order and safety). But just using those figures would distort the picture:

in the United Kingdom, much of the expenditure data is aggregated at programme level and, without a detailed analysis of local expenditure documents, it is difficult to classify using broad headings.

Even so, it’s interesting to look at the differences between different countries and the screen grab from the report seems to show just how different things are.

BBC Bristol report on a couple of short films developed by young people. One focuses on the problems that can be caused by drugs:

The short feature Nine Lives was produced by the Brizzle team from Fairfield School, and uses traditional two-dimensional coloured drawings.

The story is based on the idea of a cat with nine lives - the young girl experiments with drugs for nine days and then dies from an overdose.

The film ends with the message: “Cats have nine lives. You’ve just got one. But if you take drugs. You’ll have none.”

Madeline Moon, the MP for Bridgend, has asked a Parliamentary Question on how domestic violence is managed in the national curriculum:

Mrs. Moon: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families on the treatment of domestic violence issues within the curriculum.

Mr. Coaker: The Home Affairs Committee Report into Domestic Violence, Forced Marriage and “Honour”-Based Violence published in June this year made recommendations on the treatment of domestic violence issues within the curriculum. The Home Office and DCSF have been working together on the Government’s response to the report.

The curriculum already provides scope for the exploration of issues relating to domestic violence principally, although not exclusively, within personal, social and health education (PSHE), which includes sex and relationship education (SRE). It is important that we focus efforts on raising the overall standard of teaching in PSHE and SRE, where issues to do with healthy relationships, managing conflict and aggression would be addressed, and alerting schools to ways in which domestic violence can be used as context for exploring key concepts within the PSHE curriculum. To raise the standard of teaching we are already training teachers on PSHE, rolling out the Healthy Schools Programme and providing advice and guidance through bodies such as the QCA and PSHE Association.

We are also currently conducting two parallel reviews on how to improve the teaching of sex and relationships education and drug education within the context of PSHE. We will give careful consideration to all of the recommendations from the reviews when they report later this summer.

These short films are from earlier this year, but you may want to take a look.

They were commissioned by Channel 4 News, one deals with how three young people who use drugs view them, and another looks at heavy drinkers.

BBC NEWS - Teen drink and drug use falling

Rates of drug taking, smoking and drinking are falling among young teenagers, a national survey shows.

Nursing in Practice - Smoking among school children at 25-year low

Smoking among school children has fallen to its lowest level for 25 years, according to an NHS Information Centre survey published today.

Evening Standard - Child drug abuse: A quarter of under 16s have taken illegal substances

The worrying reality of child substance abuse was revealed today when figures showed a quarter of children have taken drugs and more than half have consumed alcohol.

The Independent- Fewer children drink, smoke or take drugs

Teenagers are sobering up – but the improvement is marginal, according to the latest survey of drinking, smoking and drug-taking by young people.

The Times - More young people are saying no to drugs, says NHS survey

Drug taking, smoking and drinking are falling among young people, a national survey shows.

Children and Young People Now - Drop in number of young drinkers and drug users

Drinking, smoking and drug use among young people have declined, new figures show.

The Mail - Child drug abuse: A quarter of under 16s have taken illegal substances

One in four secondary school pupils have taken illegal drugs at least once, according to alarming figures released yesterday.

The Telegraph - NHS: Thousands of schoolchildren drink six pints a week

One in five 11 to 15-year-olds in England - 640,000 school pupils - had drunk alcohol in the past week, figures published by the NHS Information Centre show.

Children & Young People Now

The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which looked at how children from high-risk backgrounds can avoid becoming antisocial, found young children who had school friends, supportive teachers and took part in school activities and clubs, were up to 79 per cent more likely to grow up “pro-social”.

Good parenting skills were also found to protect under-nines from becoming antisocial, but school experience was the most influential.

The research paper can be found here. They found:

Involvement in a number of types of behaviour up to age 8½ significantly increased the likelihood of involvement in further anti-social and other types of problem behaviour at age 10½. These behaviours were: smoking a cigarette; setting fire to property; carrying a weapon in case of a fight; and drinking alcohol without parental permission. This suggests a strong association rather than a causal relationship.

They found that resilience was an important protective factor and say:

• Gender was found to be significantly associated with resilience – girls were more likely to be resilient than boys.
• Analysis conducted on the boys-only sample showed that the characteristics associated with resilience amongst the boys were: school enjoyment; demonstrating high levels of pro-social behaviour and having mothers with high levels of parenting skills.

The Home Office have published their annual report on crime in England and Wales, which includes the British Crime Survey figures and police recorded crime.

On drugs they say:

Among 16 to 24 year olds there was a decrease in the use of any illicit drug in the last year, from 24.1% to 21.3%.

This they say is the lowest level since the first BCS results in 1995. They also say that Class A drug use amongst that age group is at its lowest level since 1995.

However, while self-reported use is down the police have been busier than last year:

The number of cannabis possession offences rose by 21%, largely associated with the increased police use of powers to issue cannabis warnings, an example of changes in police activity affecting trends.

The annual survey of young people’s drug use, smoking and drinking has been published.

Here’s some of the key messages.

Illegal drugs:

The prevalence of drug use has declined overall since 2001. For example, in 2007, 25% of pupils said they had tried drugs at least once, down from 29% in 2001. There were corresponding falls over the same period in the proportions of pupils who said they had taken drugs in the last year and the last month.

• 9% of pupils reported taking cannabis within the last year, a proportion which has fallen from 13% in 2001
• 4% of pupils report having taken one of the eight Class A drugs asked about
• only 5% of pupils overall take drugs once a month or more

There’s a strong message about VSA:

Pupils’ first drug use is more likely to be sniffing volatile substances than any other type of drug. Pupils who have taken volatile substances only are more likely than other drug users to say they have only tried drugs once and are less likely to report frequent drug use.

Unsurprisingly the small percentage who do take Class A drugs are most at risk:

The majority of those who report taking any Class A drugs – for example, cocaine, magic mushrooms, ecstasy or crack – say they take drugs at least once a month, and relatively few have taken drugs only once.

There are some good normative messages:

Pupils tend to feel that drug use is not acceptable behaviour within their age group. A minority think that it is OK for someone of their age to try cannabis once (10%), to try sniffing glue (9%) or to try cocaine (3%).

Again unsurprisingly the report notes that drug taking is associated with other risky behaviours, in particular they say:

the odds of having taken drugs in the last year and in the last month increase with the frequency of smoking and the amount of alcohol drunk in the last week.

They also say that pupils that have truanted or been excluded are more likely to take drugs.

Smoking

There has been a long-term decline in the proportion of pupils who have tried smoking, from 53% in 1982 to 33% in 2007.

• 6% of pupils said they smoked regularly (this is the lowest figure ever recorded by the survey).
• Regular smokers smoke 6 cigarettes a day on average.

Again risk factors associated with smoking are similar to drug taking:

Pupils who have drunk alcohol recently are more likely to be regular smokers than those who have not; regular smoking is also more likely among pupils who have taken drugs compared with those who have not. Pupils who have truanted from school or have been excluded at some time in their lives are also more likely to be regular smokers than pupils who have not.

Alcohol

46% of pupils say they have never had an alcoholic drink, up from 39% in 2003.

The likelihood of having had a drink goes up with age, with 81% of 15 year olds saying they have drunk alcohol at least once.

• 20% of pupils say they have drunk alcohol in the last 7 days.

There have been changes in the methodology for calculating how much people (including young people) are drinking. Using the new methodology:

pupils who drank alcohol in the last week consumed an average of 12.7 units, equivalent to over six pints of normal strength beer or nearly one and a half bottles of wine. Boys tend to drink more than girls and older pupils than younger ones.

The same risk factors for illegal drugs and smoking are present in those who drink regularly.

Children & Young People Now

The parents’ group Talking About Cannabis is setting up a telephone helpline for parents who are concerned about their children smoking cannabis.

The 24/7 telephone support line will be staffed by fully trained volunteers, all of whom are parents of children and teenagers who have smoked cannabis and been adversely affected.

The TAC press release gives further details and Debra Bell who founded Talking About Cannabis says:

We are delighted that the government has listened to voices like ours, and is going to reclassify cannabis, but now steps need to be taken to ensure that the message gets out to young people that using cannabis can cause severe mental illness, and ruins lives, which is where prevention education comes in. Our first priority, though, is to provide the support that is missing for parents who are faced with the daily misery of coping with a child or teen who is using drugs at school-age.

They say that they are applying for charitable status and are seeking funding from central government to undertake their activities.

The Telegraph

Radical plans to ban all alcohol adverts on television before 9pm could be dropped amid fears the move would cripple advertising companies and broadcasters

The Department of Health and the Home Office are set to publish their long-awaited independent review into the link between alcohol prices, promotions and the harm to health caused by alcohol abuse.

One of the most popular suggestions put forward by campaigners was to strengthen the existing restrictions against drink adverts on television.

It doesn’t look likely to happen though:

A spokesman for the DCMS said: “Our position is that there is not enough evidence to say that a 9pm watershed ban would have any affect on under age drinking and binge drinking.”