TEENAGE GIRLS are beginning to outdrink and outsmoke their male counterparts in Ireland, according to a European survey of 15- and 16-year-olds released yesterday.
Some 28 per cent of Irish girls surveyed said they had been drunk within the last 30 days, compared to 24 per cent of boys. And more girls reported they had smoked or used inhalants or drugs such as ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD.
The survey, by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, examined the use of cigarettes, alcohol and illicit substances among the target group in 2007. It involved 100,000 students in 35 countries.
Some 78 per cent of Irish students had taken alcohol in the previous 12 months, the survey found.
Moreover, an average of 26 per cent of Irish students said they were drunk in the last 30 days, making them fifth out of the 35 countries surveys.
More girls said they had been drunk than boys: 28 per cent compared to 24 per cent. The report found girls were also outdrinking boys in Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK, the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands. It attributed the development to a Northern European phenomenon.
But it was not only in the consumption of alcohol that girls were ahead of boys in Ireland. Ten per cent of girls admitted to having tried drugs such as amphetamines, ecstasy and LSD, compared with 9 per cent of boys. And 16 per cent of girls said they used inhalants, compared with 14 per cent of boys.
Irish students came fifth out of 35 countries for both inhalant and other drug use.
When it came to cigarettes, Irish girls also outsmoked the boys, with 27 per cent reporting having smoked in the last 30 days compared with 19 per cent of boys.
The survey, which had also been carried out on three other occasions since 1995, found the use of illicit drugs among students across all countries had stabilised or dipped slightly.
However, it raised concerns about rises in “heavy episodic drinking” and the narrowing of the gender gap regarding this behaviour.
Students were also asked about their use of marijuana. Some 17 per cent of Irish girls said they had used it and 23 per cent of the boys. Asked about the availability of cannabis, 43 per cent of students said it was easy to get.
Ireland was in the top three countries for ecstasy availability, along with Latvia and Slovenia.
“Irish students are about as likely to drink alcohol as the average student surveyed,” the report found. “But they get intoxicated more often.”
It also noted that when students were asked to indicate on a 10-point scale how drunk they felt the last time they were drinking, Irish students measured 4.4, coming second only to students in the Faroe Islands.
The director of the European centre, Wolfgang Götz, said the information offered a crucial window into differences between countries and changes in adolescent substance use in Europe.
