Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS): drug use report 2018

3 Availability of drugs

Ever been offered drugs

22% of 13 year olds and 47% of 15 year olds have ever been offered drugs.

Among both age groups, the proportion of pupils who had ever been offered drugs declined overall between 1998 and 2013. However, since 2013, the proportion of pupils who had ever been offered drugs increased across both age groups and genders (for example, 51% of 15 year old boys were offered drugs in 2018, compared with 45% in 2015, and 39% in 2013) (Figure 3.1).

Among both age groups, boys were more likely than girls to have been offered drugs (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 Proportion of pupils ever offered drugs, by sex and age (1998-2018)

Q. Have you ever been offered any of the following drugs?

Base: all pupils (for full base sizes please see Appendix B)

Types of drugs ever offered

15 year old pupils were most commonly offered cannabis. 41% of all 15 year olds had been offered cannabis, 18% had been offered ecstasy and 15% had been offered cocaine (Figure 3.2). 14% of 15 year olds had been offered MDMA powder and the same proportion had been offered some form of Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS).

As shown in Figure 3.2, since 2015 there has been an increase in the proportions of 15 year olds who have been offered cannabis (41% in 2018, compared to 37% in 2015), cocaine (15% in 2018, compared to 11% in 2015), MDMA powder (14% in 2018, compared to 10% in 2015), LSD (11% in 2018, compared to 8% in 2015) and ketamine (10% in 2018, compared to 5% in 2015).

Figure 3.2 Drugs offered to 15 year olds (2015-2018)

Q. Have you ever been offered any of the following drugs?

Base: all 15 year olds in 2018 (10,347), all 15 year olds in 2015 (11,401)

15 year old boys were more likely than 15 year old girls to have been offered each of the individual drugs in Figure 3.2, with the exception of NPS which had been offered to similar proportions of 15 year old boys and girls (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3 Drugs offered to 15 year olds, by sex (2018)

Q. Have you ever been offered any of the following drugs?

Base: all 15 year old boys (4,856), all 15 year old girls (4,948)

Source of drugs

Among pupils who had ever taken drugs, it was most common to get them from friends (friends of the same age or older) (Figure 3.4).

There has been no change in the sources of drugs since 2015.

Overall, girls were more likely than boys to get drugs from an older friend (27% of girls, compared with 21% of boys) or from their boyfriend/girlfriend (4% of girls, compared with 1% of boys).

Figure 3.4 Source of drugs, by age (2018)

Q. The last time you used drugs, how did you get them?

Base: 13 year olds who have ever used drugs (526), 15 year olds who have ever used drugs (1,801)

Ease of obtaining drugs

22% of 13 year olds and 49% of 15 year olds thought it would be 'very' or 'fairly' easy to get drugs if they wanted to.

Between 2002 and 2013, the proportion of pupils who thought it was easy to get drugs gradually decreased. However, there was an increase among all groups between 2013 and 2015 and since 2015 there has been a further increase in the proportion of 13 year old girls and 15 year old boys who thought it was easy to get drugs. 20% of 13 year old girls thought it would be easy to get drugs in 2018, compared with 17% in 2015, and 52% of 15 year old boys thought it would be easy to get drugs in 2018, compared with 48% in 2015 (Figure 3.5).

Among both age groups, boys were more likely than girls to think it would be easy to get drugs if they wanted to.

Figure 3.5 Proportion of pupils who think it would be very or fairly easy to get drugs, by age and sex (2002-2018)

Q. How easy would it be for you to get illegal drugs if you wanted to?

Base: all pupils (for full base sizes please see Appendix B)