East Ayrshire is seen as an impoverished area, especially when compared to the rest of the counties in Scotland. Despite this, the percentage of underage youths who have had an alcoholic drink has been in decline over the past few years, as seen by the graph below.
Although there is still vast room for improvement, a 13% reduction in both fifteen and thirteen year olds prove that the methods the council and other involved group are using are in fact working.
Some may argue that underage drinking has become part of the youth culture in Scotland, especially in rural areas where there is little to do.
The drug problem, specifically that in young people is still alive in Scotland, however it has declined drastically over the past decade.
This shows the efforts being taken are working, with more than half of 15 year olds previously having not tried drugs, and almost a third of thirteen year olds. Among both ages, however, boys are still more likely to be offered drugs, with 31% of boys having been offered drugs compared to the 22% of girls. Despite the drastic decrease teenagers are still being offered drugs, with 61% of all fifteen year olds being offered drugs in 2002 – a recent survey shows that the percentage of teens offered drugs is now 38%, showing that it has almost halved too. This again proves the efforts being taken are working, as about two thirds (67%) of thirteen year olds and fifteen year olds (68%) were shown lessons or shown DVDs and given discussions about drugs. 70% of pupils asked felt that their school was giving them enough information and support about drugs and alcohol and their dangers, however the pupils who had never used drugs seemed more likely to agree (71%) compared to pupils who’d used drugs in the past month (56%).
The school system and the council have taken every precaution when educating school pupils about the dangers and abuse of drugs, despite this though, the methadone program employed by the Scottish government has been described as “out of control” and “literally a black hole into which people are disappearing” by Dr Neil McKeganey, with data obtained by BBC Scotland showing pharmacies in Scotland were paid £17.8 million for handling almost 500,000 prescriptions.
McKeganey also said “We still don’t know the exact amount of people on the methadone programme, what progress they are making and if they are managing to come off methadone”
It is clear from even a medical standpoint that the methadone program was employed to stop the heroin addiction – it has done this to an extent but has also brought in a new addiction with methadone. Despite this however, in 2015 The Community Safety Minister Paul Wheelhouse told the BBC “Fewer Scots are taking drugs – numbers are continuing to fall amongst in the general adult population and drug taking amongst young people is the lowest in more than a decade.
Recently, however the number of under 18s in Scotland who’ve been convicted for drug offences are on the rise. More than 100 youngsters have been convicted via the drug misuse act last year, but with a ban on these psychoactive substances taking place last year in May,
90 retailers across Scotland were no longer selling these openly. Across the UK 144 people have died as a result of these legal highs with 62 deaths in Scotland in 2014 alone.
