Katy Gallagher is claiming ever greater successes for her health policies with even lower reported rates of drug use in Canberra’s young.
“Key findings from the report indicate there are some encouraging trends in the health and wellbeing of young people in the ACT who rate their health highly, enjoy relatively high levels of employment compared with their Australian counterparts, and are more likely to be involved in cultural, political and sporting activities.”
— 80% of young people between 16 and 25 years rated their health as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, or ‘good’
— The employment rate for people aged between 15-24 years remained consistently higher than their Australian counterparts between 2005 and 2009
— Death rates in the 12-25 year age group have more than halved, from 41.5 per 100,000 population in 1998 to 20.3 in 2007
— 12-17 year olds reporting smoking at least once during the last week decreased from 20.4% to 6.7%
Daily smokers aged 18-25 years fell from 30.7% in 2001 to 20.2% in 2007— Significant reductions in the use of illicit drugs during 2001-2007 for 18-25 year olds show;
— Amphetamine use down from 21.3% to 5.4%,
— Cocaine use down from 6.7% to 2.8%,
— Ecstasy use down from 22.4% to 17.4%,
— Use of hallucinogens down from 4.9% to 2.7%, and
— Cannabis use down from 35.7% to 25.3%.
It’s amazing what extremely low unemployment can do as well, but we do wonder if they’re using less drugs, lying more to survey takers, or a bit of both?