Lies may inflate drug figures

Drug use among teenagers may not be as high as believed, new
evidence suggests.

According to research by Frank, the free national drugs information
service provided by the Department of Health and the Home Office,
one in five teenagers say their friends pretend to take drugs in
order to “fit in with their tribe”.

It finds that boys are twice as likely as girls to succumb to peer
pressure and say they have taken drugs when they have not.

“The ways in which young people talk about themselves to their
peers helps them to create a sense of self,” said report author
Peter Marsh, director at the Social Issues Research Centre. “To be
an individual, we first need to be one of the lads or
lasses.”

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics in March
reveal that 31 per cent of males aged 16 to 19 and 24 per cent of
females in the same age group used drugs in 2000.