Youth intelligence · prevalence, treatment and safeguarding
Youth drug use and county lines intelligence dashboard
Separate views of population use, specialist-treatment demand and exploitation. Each measure retains its own age group, geography, period and denominator.
Editorial review: 4 November 2026Youth drug-use trends
Lifetime, past-year and past-month use are different measures.
School pupils aged 11–15
6% → 23%Lifetime use: age 11 → age 15
12% / 12%Lifetime use: boys / girls (survey gender)
Age breakdown and survey limitations
| Age | Lifetime | Past year | Past month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 6 | 4 | 4 |
| 12 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 13 | 9 | 6 | 4 |
| 14 | 13 | 9 | 4 |
| 15 | 23 | 19 | 11 |
The 2023 survey moved online; routing and non-response changed. Lifetime use was 18% in 2021 and 13% in 2023, but the exact contribution of methodology to that fall is unknown. NHS England advises against direct comparison with pre-2016 drug estimates.
Young adults aged 16–24
Selected years, each year ending March; past-year use. The 2025 estimate is below 2015, but the change from 2024 is not statistically significant. The longer-term peak was 31.8% in 1997.
4.5%Any Class A drug · past year
3.5%Any drug more than monthly · past year
Changing substance patterns
Select a survey population; treatment demand is shown separately.
11–15: England school survey
Alcohol and emerging substances
In the separate England 2023 school alcohol survey, 37% reported ever drinking alcohol. This is lifetime use, not past-year drug use, so it is not plotted on these bars. No new national youth prevalence estimate is supplied here for nitazenes or unexpected mixtures.
NHS England alcohol source ↗Problem substances recorded in treatment
Ketamine-related treatment demand
- 2021–22
- 5124.5% of treatment cohort
- 2022–23
- 7195.8% of treatment cohort
- 2023–24
- 1,2018.4% of treatment cohort
- 2024–25
- 1,4659.0% of treatment cohort
All children in treatment with ketamine recorded, including existing clients; not just new entrants. Percentages use each year’s treatment cohort.
Rising treatment demand alongside no detected annual prevalence change
The under-18 ketamine treatment count rose while the latest 16–24 household estimate showed no significant annual change. Different populations and indicators prevent a direct causal explanation.
- Review local referral access and treatment capacity.
- Record frequency, quantity, combinations and reported harm separately.
- Ensure pathways for urinary symptoms and other physical health concerns.
A rise may reflect changing harm, access, referral or recording, alongside use. These sources cannot separate those explanations.
Vulnerability and safeguarding
Recorded needs among treatment starters are associations within a service cohort.
Co-occurring needs and vulnerabilities
Look beyond the substance
Education
Exclusion, attendance changes and disengagement can accompany vulnerability; investigate the individual context.
Care and housing
Care experience, unstable accommodation and weak support networks can be exploited.
Mental health
Assess distress, self-harm, sensory or communication needs alongside substance use.
Criminal and sexual exploitation
They can overlap. Apparent agreement does not remove coercion or exploitation.
62% / 39%Mental health treatment need · girls / boys starting treatment, OHID 2024–25
73%Received mental health treatment · among 5,664 starters reporting need
OHID mental health source ↗ Vulnerabilities are not causes attributable to the child. Perpetrators abuse a power imbalance, and children without recognised risk factors can also be exploited.
County lines intelligence
Operational management information, distinct from prevalence and welfare outcomes.
Disruption and safeguarding activity
Definitions and a reporting inconsistency
Line closures concern deal lines taken out of use through arrest and charge, with follow-up checks. One holder may control multiple lines. Arrests, charges and referrals measure different events. Unequal reporting periods should not be treated as a trend.
The source’s specialist-support section reports 882 unique young people for July 2024–December 2025, but other passages give inconsistent periods. This support count is retained here with that caveat and excluded from headline comparisons.
Recruitment, coercion and changing supply
What county lines means
Organised drug distribution into importing areas through dedicated phone or other deal lines, often exploiting children and vulnerable adults to move or store drugs and money. Distribution can also be local.
How exploitation develops
Gifts, friendship or status can become manufactured debt, threats or violence. Online contacts, messaging, gaming and fraudulent job adverts can facilitate grooming.
Market adaptation
The NCA’s 2026 assessment describes broadly stable line numbers between 2024 and 2025, more localised distribution and an increase in social-media lines. This does not provide a complete count of exploitation.
NCA 2026 assessment ↗Follow the child’s safety
Closures do not establish reduced exploitation. Review repeat threats, support continuity and whether agreed protective actions happened.
Treatment pathways and recorded outcomes
Referral access, engagement and completion each require a separate measure.
How children reach specialist treatment
Completion is a recorded endpoint
Practitioner intelligence
TD service-planning interpretation of the linked evidence and guidance.
Youth workers
Build trusted contact; explore debts, missing episodes and controlling relationships alongside substance use.
Schools and colleges
Connect attendance concerns with the safeguarding lead; maintain educational support and accessible referral routes.
Drug treatment services
Assess combinations, mental health and physical symptoms; offer safeguarding support without assuming exploitation.
Children’s social care
Assess the child’s relationships, strengths and places of harm, including online settings.
Safeguarding partnerships
Agree responsibilities and review whether protective action occurred, rather than counting referrals alone.
Youth justice teams
Retain a safeguarding response alongside offending assessment; consider coercion and avoid treating children as older than they are.
Public health commissioners
Monitor access, retention, equity and child-centred outcomes alongside treatment and enforcement counts.
Responding to a concern
Immediate danger: call 999. Otherwise follow local safeguarding procedures, involve the safeguarding lead and contact children’s social care and police as appropriate. Follow up concerns. Suspected trafficking requires the relevant first-responder pathway alongside child protection; a referral alone is not a safety outcome.
Minimum local intelligence and evidence classifications
Keep population prevalence, treatment demand, police activity and safeguarding outcomes in separate series. Locally review referral access, missing episodes, school participation, threats, housing, treatment continuity and repeat exploitation. Include age, sex, ethnicity, neurodivergence and care experience only where lawful, proportionate and useful to assessing equity.
Official survey statistics, treatment records, operational intelligence, guidance and TD interpretation are labelled throughout. These distinctions do not change the platform’s separate TD frontline estimates on other pages. Figures not established reliably are left as evidence gaps.