‘Major shift’: Young women taking more drugs and drinking heavily

This snapshot of Australia’s habits also showed that, overall, more women and fewer men experienced harm from others’ drinking.

“This could be attributed to changes in drinking settings during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Jason Jiang, of the Department of Public Health and Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University.

“With a shift towards more men working and consuming alcohol at home instead of pubs, clubs and other venues, there has been an increase in alcohol-related harms to women at home and a decrease in harms experienced by men in public settings.

“It’s complex, but while many men might have gone to the pub with colleagues after work, they are now drinking at home. There has been a concomitant rise in online ordering and deliveries of alcohol and it being cheaper is probably a factor too.”

The good news is that the proportion of people who have never smoked continues to rise and has reached 65 per cent of the population. The bad news is that vaping rates have almost tripled, from 2.5 per cent in 2019 to 7 per cent.

The survey found vaping was most common among the vulnerable 18-24 age group and that half of them had tried it, at least once. Older people were the most likely to smoke tobacco and least likely to use e-cigarettes.

Dr Jiang said cost could also be influencing the rise in vaping among the young. A daily smoker might spend about $14,000 a year on cigarettes, but a daily vaper could incur just $1400.

Emeritus professor Simon Chapman, of Sydney University, said studies showed that young people who start vaping have a three to fivefold probability of smoking later, which explained why all the major tobacco companies also sell vapes.

“These new data put 10,000-watt lights on the fact that vaping is now most obviously a peerless way of introducing young people to nicotine, being by far highest in young age groups who have long had the lowest smoking rates,” Professor Chapman said.

“So the typical vaper is not a smoker trying to quit, but a ‘recreational vaper’ who was nicotine naive before starting to vape.”

The survey, which involved more than 21,000 people aged 14 and over, found the use of psychedelic drugs significantly increased since 2019, making them the third most popular illegal drugs in Australia after cannabis and cocaine.

While 74 per cent of people disapproved of the regular use of hallucinogens, the use of the most commonly used ones – mushroom and psilocybin – doubled.

This increase, from 1.6 to 2.4 per cent, is likely due to increased media hype regarding the potential for these drugs to be used to treat mental health conditions, according to Dr Stephen Bright, an addiction expert from Edith Cowan University and a director of Psychedelic Research in Science & Medicine.