Young people are turning their backs on alcohol, a new study has suggested.

Researchers looked at official health data from the last decade and found almost a third of 16 to 24-year-olds in 2015 said they didn't drink, compared with around one in five in 2005.

Non-drinking was found across a broad range of groups, suggesting it was becoming "more mainstream".

Nope, they're smoking weed instead.

Indeed. Drug use seems to be rife even in schools now. I know of students taking cocaine while in the 6th form at one local secondary.

Weed smoking is rife everywhere - smoke it or don't, I don't really care - I just don't want to smell it, because it ******* stinks.

Around 1 in 12 (8.4%) adults aged 16 to 59 had taken a drug in the last year. This equated
to around 2.7 million people. This level of drug use was similar to the 2014/15 survey (8.6%),
but is statistically significantly lower than a decade ago (10.5% in the 2005/06 survey). The
trend in last year drug use among 16 to 59 year olds has been flat for 7 years, since the
2009/10 survey.

Around 1 in 5 (18.0%) young adults aged 16 to 24 had taken a drug in the last year. This
proportion is more than double that of the wider age group, and equates to around 1.1 million
people. This level of drug use was similar to the 2014/15 survey (19.5%), but statistically
significantly lower than a decade ago (25.2% in the 2005/06 survey).

Under 1 in 20 (4.3%) adults aged 16 to 59 had taken a drug in the last month, while
around 1 in 11 (9.1%) young adults aged 16 to 24 had done so. Neither proportion has
changed statistically significantly compared with the 2014/15 survey, but both are significantly
lower compared with a decade ago, when 6.3 per cent of 16 to 59 year olds had reported taking
a drug in the last month and 15.1 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds had done so.

Over one-third (35.0%) of adults aged 16 to 59 had taken drugs at some point during their
lifetime. This is an increase from 30.4 per cent in the 1996 survey, but similar to more recent
figures, such as 35.1 per cent a decade ago in the 2005/06 survey. Use of illegal drugs in a
person’s lifetime is likely to be affected by generational effects