Revealed: Top private schools ‘awash with Class A drugs’

DRUG use is rife among teenagers at private schools and many are starting aged just 12, according to an investigation.

It found that taking Class A substances had become ‘normal’ even among pupils at elite boarding schools.

A series of interviews with dozens of youngsters indicated that children as young as 12 were being introduced to drugs by older pupils acting as dealers.

The most popular drugs were MDMA, ketamine, cocaine, magic mushrooms, cannabis and LSD, reported the society magazine Tatler. Many youngsters are also on Xanax and the so-called study drugs Ritalin and Adderall.

Part of the problem was that the pupils came from well-off families and had the money for drugs.

The teenagers, whose identities were protected by the magazine, said psychotic episodes and addictions had led some families to pay up to £70,000 for rehab.

A 17-year-old at a ‘well-known liberal boarding school’ told Tatler: ‘In the last year, I haven’t been on a night out or even to a friend’s house where there hasn’t been a person taking drugs. Every single time I go out someone will have drugs or will have taken drugs, or someone will be offering them. It just happens.’

He said he started taking MDMA when he was 14 and moved on to ketamine soon after.

‘It’s very hard to resist if everyone’s taken the same drug and you haven’t,’ the pupil added. ‘You can’t have the same night if you haven’t taken it.’

Emily, a 17-year-old at a co-ed boarding school, said up to 90 per cent of her friends were on drugs. Chloe, a 19-year-old former pupil of a prestigious London all-girls day school, said a friend would take MDMA before his least favourite lesson ‘so it would be more fun’. Another 17-year-old said she knew friends who took cocaine every day, even at school. One teenager added: ‘It’s just so normal for us to be doing drugs. We all do them.’ The magazine said: ‘Meet Tatler’s Gen-Z, Class A students. Teenage drug use is nothing new, what is striking – indeed radically different to times past – is just how run-of-the-mill, how ordinary, it is for this group of adolescents.’

Many of the teenagers said drugs were now much easier to get hold of, whether on the dark web or social media.

‘There’s no faffing around with fake IDs and, if you’re using the dark web, you never even have to meet a dealer,’ Tatler said.

‘Some, hungry for drugs, sell their clothes over Facebook or on the shopping app Depop.’

The investigation is in September’s Tatler, available on digital download and on sale today.