Highs and lows of drug taking

The online survey entitled 'Pills and Spills' was hosted on YouthNet's support and advice service TheSite.org, and completed anonymously by 429 young people aged 16 to 24. Respondents also shared candid descriptions of the impact drugs and drug taking have had on their lives, providing a disturbing snapshot of the real life stories behind the statistics.

Quotes included: 

"[Drugs] caused me to have a huge breakdown at school during year 11. Parents got called [to] the school - I had to go to see social services and my parents didn't trust me for a long time."

"I got arrested a year ago, and it has destroyed my relationship with my parents. My degree has been messed up, but thankfully the university has let me re-sit my final year."

"It broke my relationship up with my [girlfriend], made my sexual desires die down, made me grumpy, snappy and abusive."

"Paranoia is the main negative effect that comes with taking drugs, it also left me feeling insecure and anxious."

"I have a family member who now has mental health problems due to taking drugs and it has made me never want to take them."

"When my mum found out I had been smoking cannabis, we had a lot of arguments. I ended up living with my aunt and uncle for 6 months."

"My cocaine addiction put me in debt and made it really hard to continue my savings."

Matt Whyman, an advisor on TheSite.org and respected agony uncle with years of experience as an expert and author on young people's issues, says: "Although this survey includes the experiences of just a small number of young people, it does highlight that the damaging impact on an individual's life can be enormous.

"In order to help young people realise the long term effects drug taking can have, it's essential that more straight-talking information and advice on drugs is freely available to them, to act as antidote to pressure by peers or reduce the chance of them feeling preached at by elders."

Findings from the survey include:
Young lives damaged
• Half (51%) of drug-users surveyed (259) said their lives had been negatively affected by their drug use
• A quarter (25%) said their mental health had suffered as a consequence
• Similar proportions said drugs had damaged their relationships with parents (24%), relationships with friends (22%) and academic studies (21%).

Drug-taking at a young age
• Six in ten (60%) of all respondents said they had taken a recreational drug, excluding alcohol, nicotine or caffeine
• Half (49%) of those who had taken recreational drugs (257) had done so for the first time before they were 16-years-old
• 3% gave their age as 12-years-old or younger.

Easily-obtainable
• Respondents were as likely to have tried cocaine or ecstasy as poppers, which are legal and available on the high street. Over a quarter (27%) had tried poppers while 26% and 25% had tried ecstasy and cocaine respectively
• Six in ten (60%) drug-users had bought drugs
• One quarter (26%) had sold drugs.

TheSite.org, run by charity YouthNet, provides straight-talking, anonymous information and advice 24 hours a day, on subjects including drink and drugs, home, law and money, work and study, and sex and relationships. Its bespoke question and answer service, askTheSite, provides young people with a confidential, personal answer to any question within three working days. Drugs-related questions are answered by one of askTheSite's partner organisations, addaction - a charity that provides treatment, help and advice about drugs and alcohol for young people and adults.

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Media Enquiries:
For further media information – or to arrange interviews with a young person affected by drug-use – please contact Gabriella Jówiak at YouthNet on 020 7250 5716 or out-of-hours on 07766 660 755.  Email media@youthnet.org

Notes to Editors
1. Between 11th and19th February 2009, 429 young people aged 16 to 24 from the UK completed a survey called Pills and Spills hosted on YouthNet's website, TheSite.org. Incentivised with a £5 voucher for the music retailer HMV, the survey explored young people's experiences and awareness of drugs, as well as their attitudes towards drug information, advice and education
2. The sample was self-selecting and no quotas added, so the survey provides a natural demographic profile of respondents. There was no weighting applied to the data for this survey
3. Respondents were most likely to be between 16 and 18 years of age, with more than four in ten (42%) in this age group. A third (33%) were aged 22 to 24 and only a quarter were aged 19 to 21
4. Matt Whyman - As an askTheSite advisor, Matt writes weekly replies to questions from TheSite.org users. He has worked as an agony uncle since the mid-Nineties, writing for Bliss, 19, B and AOL UK and was recently featured on BBC Radio 1Xtra and City Talk FM (Liverpool). Matt has also written numerous health awareness campaigns for radio, The Health Education Authority and Brook Centres. He is the author of several best-selling novels, including Man or Mouse, Columbia Road and Boy Kills Man, as well as the bestselling advice guide for boys Unzipped: a toolkit for life (all published by Hodder). http://www.thesite.org/about_us/partners/askthesitepartners/mattwhyman
5. Run by young people's charity YouthNet, TheSite.org is the online guide to life for 16 to 24-year-olds.  With over 2,000 articles written by experts and journalists, a series of blogs, podcasts and videos, a bespoke question and answer service (askTheSite) and a thriving online community, TheSite.org is the central place for young people to turn to for sound, straight talking, anonymous advice 24-hours-a-day
6. Every month, TheSite.org is visited by around 500,000 unique users, and receives more than 1,000 questions on issues ranging from relationships to advice on housing. Content on TheSite.org is also available on mobile, at TheSite.org/mobile
7. YouthNet is the UK's first exclusively online charity and was founded by Martyn Lewis CBE in 1995. It aims to create a socially inclusive environment where all young adults are engaged, informed and inspired to achieve their ambitions and dreams, and does this through two award winning websites, TheSite.org and the UK's leading volunteering website, do-it.org.uk.
8. The Department of Health funded 'Pills and Spills' as part of a contract of work to deliver expert information, advice and guidance on drug-related issues to 16-24 year olds through TheSite.org