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Cigarettes and alcohol: less experimenting, more abstinence by Irish teens

In the 12 months prior to a European-wide survey, just 14 per cent of Irish teens had used cannabis, down from 33 per cent 17 years earlier.

The comprehensive research by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction also found that just 19 per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds in Ireland had ever used any illicit drugs. This was down from 37 per cent in 1995.

Ireland was one of only a few countries where the proportion was lower last year than in the first survey of the the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (EPSAD) in 1995.