Ecstasy use in Australian school kids has surged in the last few years

Talk of drug use in adults is pretty common place these days with a few tragic deaths at festivals over the summer period spurring on a mainstream discussion over pill testing and overall ways to approach the subject, be it punitive or harm reduction.

Unfortunately pill testing is yet to be taken up, aside from a second trial in the ACT at this years Groovin The Moo which already yielded successful results last year and ultimately having the back of a number of groups and individuals, see below;

Australian Medical Association
National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre
The Ambulance Union State Council
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation’s state boss Paul Gilbert
Former Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Palmer
ACT Chief Health Commissioner Dr Paul Kelly
Independent MP Doctor Keryn Phelps
NZ Police Commissioner Stuart Nash
Music event and festival organisers
The Greens
European counterparts
UK Festival organisers

The less talked about but increasing demographic using ecstasy turns out to be high school kids with a surprising 50% jump over the past 3 years according to results from the Australian Secondary Students’ Alcohol and Drug (ASSAD) study.

Some 20,000 high school kids from around Australia were surveyed in 2017 and found that for teens aged between 16-17 some ten percent had used the drug recreationally, up from six percent in 2014.

While that isn’t an alarmingly high number it does show that use has increased and that is without the common environmental aspect of clubbing or festivals right?

So consider the next few years for these teens and you’d find they would be much more familiar with ecstasy and drug use and without real education around purity and what to expect etc could end up in some more serious situations.

All in all, the federal and state governments ‘just say no’ campaign really isn’t working and maybe it’s worth trying a new angle and treating drug use as a health issue.