What is worse for children – drink or drugs?

A. GPs like me have seen far more people ruined by drink than drugs, but that’s only because it has been a commoner drug of abuse. Binge drinking is now causing liver failure in women in their late twenties and thirties – something we never saw before – so that worries me a lot. But the recent rise in drug abuse worries me even more. In our region there are hundreds of heroin addicts who started on tobacco, most of whom now have criminal records and whose career hopes have long vanished. We also have quite a few teenagers damaged by ‘E’ and cannabis who need long-term psychiatric care. Frankly I despair for teenagers with either problem.