Posted on July 22, 2009

Teens are bound to experiment with new things from time to time. When those new things include illegal drugs, the teen puts their health and their everyday pleasures at risk. A new study produced by Queen’s University Belfast has confirmed the assumption that some North Ireland teens are experimenting with cocaine.

A recent Science Daily release examined research conducted by the Institute of Child Care Research at Queen’s School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work. This particular study found that 7.5 percent of young people participating in the Belfast Youth Development Survey had tried cocaine at least once by the age of 16.

Dr Patrick McCrystal, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute or Child Care Research, said: “A small number of those who took part in the survey told us they had tried cocaine at least once. Of those who had taken cocaine, only one in ten used it on a weekly basis. This indicates that while some teenagers have experimented with the drug, few continue to use it regularly.”

McCrystal noted that while cocaine had only recently emerged on the drug scene in Northern Ireland, these findings suggest that it is making its way into the adolescent drug scene much faster than originally thought. It also suggests that the typical cocaine user is changing.

During the 1990s, typical cocaine users included single, well-educated and well-paid professionals in their twenties. According to the findings of this study, more than half of those who had experimented with cocaine were females and one third had experienced some sort of social deprivation.

The majority of those participating in the study who had taken cocaine also regularly got drunk, smoked tobacco daily and used cannabis on a weekly basis. Two thirds of participants had also used inhalants.