Sleeping pills replace grog

AUSTRALIAN students are increasingly taking tranquillisers for recreational use, as one in five secondary school kids admits taking sleeping tablets or sedatives without a medical reason, new research shows.

While high school students’ alcohol and tobacco consumption is falling, their use of tranquillisers without a medical reason has slowly climbed, a Cancer Council study shows.

Twenty per cent of students aged 12 to 17 admitted to recreationally using sleeping tablets, sedatives or benzodiazepines, including diazepam.

That was up 2 per cent in the three years to 2017, the report into secondary students’ use of tobacco, alcohol, overthe-counter drugs and illicit substances found. Of those who had recreationally taken tranquillisers, 4 per cent had used them in the past week.

Students most commonly sourced the sedatives through parents (65 per cent), followed by from a prescription (18 per cent) and then from somebody else (6 per cent).

The report found young people’s use of tranquillisers both in the past month and in their lifetime was “slightly higher” than in 2011.

Cannabis was used slightly less, with 17 per cent of young people admitting to smoking the illicit drug.

Use of other illicit substances remained stable, with about one in 50 kids having used opiates, cocaine or ecstasy.

Meanwhile, alcohol and tobacco consumption had dropped slightly. Two in three of the high schoolers had tried booze, the report showed, with parents the main suppliers.

Most secondary school students had never smoked (82 per cent); an increase of 5 per cent since 2011.

But one in 20 kids were current smokers and the most likely source was friends, although many also bought cigarettes themselves (18 per cent), despite not being of legal age to do so.

Nearly 80,000 high school students had smoked in the past week, with 1600 of them being 12-year-olds.

Cancer Council chief executive Todd Harper said it was encouraging that fewer young Aussies were experimenting with alcohol and tobacco.