Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS): national overview 2018

Perceptions of The Risks of Substance Use

Non-smokers were slightly more likely than regular smokers to agree with statements about the health risks of smoking. 

The pattern was different for drugs. Those who had used drugs in the last month were generally more likely than those who had never used drugs to say that statements about the risks were true. But they were much less likely to agree that ‘taking cannabis is dangerous’, and cannabis is the drug they are most likely to have taken.

Figure 20: Proportion of pupils among both age groups who agreed with substance use health risk statements by substance use status (2018)