Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use among Young People in England - 2004

This is the latest in a series of surveys of secondary school children which provides the national estimates of the proportion of young people aged 11-15 who smoke, drink alcohol or take illegal drugs. The first survey in the series, carried out in 1982, provided estimates of the proportion of pupils who smoked and described their smoking behaviour. Similar surveys were carried out to monitor trends in the prevalence of cigarette smoking every two years until 1998, and annually since then. Questions on alcohol consumption were included for the first time in the 1988 survey, and the 1998 survey was the first to include questions on the prevalence of drug use.