A string of newspapers lamented the excesses of the young in response to an NHS report detailing their illicit activities.

Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2008, from the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, provides an insight into the habits of those aged between 11 and 15. The overall message was reasonably positive – fewer youngsters are drinking even if the minority who do are downing larger quantities – and that might explain why some newspapers were selective in their choice of statistics and why others chose not to run the story.
 
Some were particularly keen to highlight the fact that 550,000 youngsters said they had drunk in the last week, but failed to contextualise the figure appropriately. Indeed,  the proportion of children who said they had drunk alcohol in the last week has fallen to 18 per cent, from a peak of 26 per cent  in 2001 and 20 per cent in 2007.
 
The Daily Mail failed to clarify that an average consumption was 14.6 units quoted in the report applied only to those 18 per cent of children who admitted to drinking in the last week, not an average of all children.  It added that “the amount they knocked back ..... was twice as high as in 1990.” True, the  report does show that, among those who drink, the average consumption is increasing. But  it also specifically states that figures from this year should not be compared with previous years, because of changes in the way units drunk by children are measured to take into account bigger wine glasses and stronger drinks.
 
The Sun and The Daily Express focused on children's drug use, linking the report with other newly released figures from the Department of Health that 60 children were admitted to hospital with acute cocaine poisoning in 2007-8.
 
But the NHS report contradicted the Express headline claiming a large rise in drug use. What it actually showed was that while 1.7 per cent of children aged 11-15 had taken cocaine in the last year, that was a reduction on the 1.8 per cent recorded the year before. As for the Sun, its assertion that it was “staggering” that 8 per cent of children admitted to taking drugs within the last month showed a lack of perspective, as it was actually the lowest percentage reported this decade, with a fall from 10 per cent the previous year.
 
And the reduction in smoking amongst children was ignored by almost all the papers, despite this positive development taking up a third of the actual report.