Drugs can also give pleasure to the adolescent, sometimes enabling them to get along better in their world by giving inner peace, joy, relaxation, surges of exhilaration and prolonged heightened sensations. " (p. 487). This paper will attempt to explain the existence of illicit drug use in Australian adolescents , focusing on the drug, cannabis, its prevalence and current methods of managing adolescent use.
The 1998 National Drug Strategy Household survey was conducted by Roy Morgan Research and managed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. It provided "data on behaviour, knowledge and attitudes relating to drug use by people aged 14 years and over." (Reid et al, 2000).
The 1998 Survey found that 35.1 % of the young people surveyed aged between 14 and 19 years have used cannabis in the past twelve months. 47.8% of males and females were offered cannabis in the last year, and 45.2% had used cannabis in their lifetime. These figures had all increased since the same survey in 1995. The table below reports the findings in detail. .
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Source: Reid et al (2000). Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 24, 6. ).
Reid et al (2000) discussed the survey results in relation to frequency of cannabis use among the adolescents: " A large proportion of adolescents who had used cannabis did so infrequently or had stopped using the drug: over one third (37.5%) of young people who had used cannabis did not currently use, and 16.9% only used cannabis 1-2 times per year or less often. A further 24.8% of cannabis users used the drug monthly or less, while a minority (20.8% of cannabis users or 9.4% of the whole adolescent population) used it on a weekly basis or even more frequently, including every day. Daily use (at least once a day) was reported by 7.1% of cannabis users.".
These figures firstly display the availability of cannabis among adolescents and suggest its ease of obtainment. Secondly it contradicts the popular stereotype of adolescents as all being drug abusers.
