Pot, booze lead teens to hard drugs
Jill Stark
July 18, 2007
TEENAGERS who smoke cannabis and binge-drink are much more likely to use amphetamines in later life, with research revealing that 12 per cent of Australians aged 24 have used "ice" or speed.
A 10-year study tracking almost 2000 Victorian secondary school students from the age of 15 found that teenagers who smoked cannabis were up to 15 times more likely to use amphetamines at 24 than others.
Even those who only occasionally smoked it were three times more likely to use ice or speed as an adult.
The findings have prompted calls for early intervention programs to head off the trend towards amphetamines.
The study, published in international journal Addiction, found binge drinking was also a "gateway" drug for amphetamine use.
Teenagers who drank heavily in adolescence were twice as likely to take the illicit drug later in life. Twenty-six per cent of users at 24 were also addicted to alcohol while 24 per cent were dependent on cannabis and 40 per cent smoked it weekly.
Alcohol addiction was a major problem even for those who did not use ice or speed — 11 per cent of non-users aged 24 were alcohol dependent and a further 37 per cent of men and 22 per cent of women were putting themselves at high risk of alcohol-related harm.
The research, by the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, has led to calls for tough prevention campaigns on cannabis and alcohol use.
Doctors say government prevention campaigns focusing on amphetamines will not reduce use as habits begin earlier in life with other drugs.
"I'm sure that many parents are worried about it, but this suggests that by the time people are using amphetamines they've already got quite an extensive history of other drug use," said the study's chief author, Dr Louisa Degenhardt, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.
"People are also likely to be using the legal ones such as alcohol and tobacco and they're likely to be having problems with them, and that's the thing that's really left out of the debate. We need to have messages that are appropriately targeted to people who might be extensive drug users already."
Dieting or mental health problems in adolescence were not found to be indicators of later amphetamine use.
The research shows that young amphetamine users are less likely to have education beyond high school or be in a relationship. They are more likely to be on welfare and have higher rates of anxiety and depression.
A co-author of the study, Professor George Patton, of the Centre for Adolescent Health, said the profile challenged the notion of amphetamines as "party" drugs used by wealthy, middle-class young people frequenting nightclubs.
"The message is that we need to remain vigilant about amphetamines because use has grown substantially over the past 10 years. But the main focus needs to be on those drugs that young people are using too often, and at the moment it's cannabis."
