The statistics, drawn from findings in the 2003 Crime and Justice survey, reveal that although vulnerable groups, including children who have been in care or homeless, children who play truant or are excluded, and young offenders, represented less than a third of young people in the survey's sample, they accounted for 61 per cent of class A drug users.
Serious or frequent offenders and truants showed the highest levels of drug use, with lower levels of use among children who had been in care or homeless.
Members of more than one vulnerable group also had "significantly higher" levels of drug use than young people falling into just one vulnerable group. In a separate report, drug use among young people was revealed to have fallen by 24 per cent since 1998.
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