Drug use among students on the rise, study shows

IF you have a loved one or friend in college in Ireland and you worry that they may be taking drugs, perhaps you should look away now. Or perhaps not.

Perhaps it’s better if you have an up to-date picture of the level of drug taking among students, to decide for yourself just how risky the situation is, or is not. If you do want a clearer view of the situation, read on.

I have just had the privilege to lead a team of researchers from University College Cork to complete the most comprehensive study to date on the issue of Drug Use among students in Higher Education in Ireland – the DUHEI study.

Twenty-one of our publicly funded HEI’s (Higher Education Institutions) took part in the survey, including MTU and UCC, and responses from over eleven and a half thousand students were analysed. Students from first year undergraduate through to final year postgraduate level provided their responses anonymously, ensuring that the survey is truly representative of the situation on the ground in campuses in Ireland today.

The data may well come as a surprise to parents of students and to presidents of colleges. It will not come as a surprise to the students themselves, however. 

Over half of the students surveyed said that drug use was a normal part of student life. While it is true to say that most students in higher education in Ireland do not take drugs regularly, a sizeable proportion of them do.

Some of the key findings are as follows.

• Over one in two students used drugs at some stage in their life.
• Over one in three students used drugs within the past year.
• One in four males and one in six females used drugs within the past month.
• Cocaine is now the second-most common drug used by students, after cannabis.
• Just less than one in six students used cocaine at least once in the previous year, Cocaine use is averaging at about once monthly for one in ten students.
• Over one in two of those using drugs monthly are at moderate or substantial risk of harm.
• One in two drug users reported they would not like to reduce their drug use.

COVID-19 saw a net reduction in levels of drug use; one in four students increasing their use, one in three reducing the use, and the rest remaining unchanged.

Over one in twenty students describe themselves as having had a drug or alcohol problem.

Behind these headline figures lie other interesting data. For instance, cocaine use by students appears to have increased significantly over the past 20 years. In 2002, an earlier study of student habits in twenty-one of our colleges revealed that 5.8% of students surveyed had used cocaine in the previous year. In our study this had nearly trebled to 15.7%.

In the students categorised as current drug users, many started taking drugs at an early age, whilst still in secondary school. 

One in four current drug users had used cannabis under the age of sixteen, one in three had taken cocaine between ages sixteen and eighteen.

The commonest reason given by students for using all drug types was to have fun, other than for cannabis, which students described using to help them relax. When asked, most students who used drugs reported that their drug use had neither negative nor positive impact across most areas of their lives including academic achievement, relationships with others, physical and mental health, and even their finances. They reported that drug use has a strongly positive impact on their social lives.

It is surprising perhaps, that less than one in two students who use drugs want to reduce or stop using drugs; they appear very confident of their ability to stop using drugs, with a score ranging between 8.5 and 9.4 out of 10, as their estimate of their ability to stop taking drugs once they decide to do so.

The clear messages from this landmark study are that drug use among students in higher education in Ireland is increasing, having started for many students whilst they were still in school. 

Students accept it as a normal part of the student experience, those students who do use drugs are not minded to stop; they believe drug use is doing them little harm and they can stop whenever they want to.

If we want to reduce the harms our students our experiencing through their use of drugs, it is important to base our actions on data and evidence. The DUHEI survey provides both data and evidence. Why not take a closer look at www.DUHEI.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Michael Byrne is the Head of the Student Health Service in University College Cork and the Principal Investigator on the DUHEI study. m.byrne@ucc.ie