New research on the drinking habits of 11- to 15-year-olds has led to a call for more prosecutions of those found selling alcohol to underage teens.

Girls are drinking as often as boys for the first time, according to asurvey commissioned by the Department of Health. The research, from theNational Centre for Social Research and National Foundation forEducational Research, shows almost a quarter of girls, and boys, nowdrink alcohol.

Yet the figures, based on almost a thousand 11- to 15-year-olds, showlittle recent change in how often girls drink.

Instead, while the proportion of girls who drank alcohol in the pastweek has remained unchanged at 23 per cent since 2000, the number ofboys who have done so has dropped by two per cent in the same period.The rate for boys and girls has moved up and down between 20 and 27 percent since 1988.

But when girls do drink, they drink more. The amount consumed hasdoubled in just over a decade for both sexes and girls are rapidlyclosing the gap. In 1998, girls drank an average of 8.4 units a week,much less than the 11.3 consumed by boys of the same age. Though thisfigure hadn't changed for boys last year, for girls it had risen to 10.2units a week.

Girls have become more likely to smoke than boys since the 80s, withlast year's figures showing 10 per cent of girls were regular smokerscompared to seven per cent of boys.

Richard Phillips, director of services at drugs and alcohol treatmentcharity Phoenix House, said local authorities needed to clamp down onpubs and shops selling drink to under-age teens. He pointed out that inlast year's summer clampdown the Government failed to prosecute a singleone of several hundred premises identified as illegally selling alcoholto young people.

FACT BOX

- The study found widespread awareness among schoolchildren of illegaldrugs, with more than 90 per cent having heard of cannabis, cocaine andheroin

- In 2004, 26 per cent of pupils had used an illegal drug at some pointin their lives, down from 30 per cent in 2003

- Nine per cent of girls had used drugs in the past month, compared to11 per cent of boys

- www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/11/81/55/04118 155.pdf.