Poly social-drug use in the Australian population: Data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships

  • Mr Jason Ferris, Australia Research Centre Sex Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, Australia
  • Prof Anthony Smith, Australia Research Centre Sex Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, Australia
  • Prof Marian Pitts, Australia Research Centre Sex Health and Society, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, Australia
  • Dr Julia Shelley, School of Health and Social Development, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia, Australia
  • Assoc Prof Juliet Richters, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia, Australia
  • Prof Judy Simpson, School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia., Australia

    • Objective: Research papers in the drug and alcohol field typically highlight the prevalence of co-existing substance use for a given population of interest: in particular what has been coined here the poly social-drugs: alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. This paper provides a descriptive account of poly social-drug use in an Australian cohort. The aim of this paper is to present the interactive patterns of these three poly social-drugs using data from the 2005 intake interview of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Health and Relationships.
    Methods: Analysis of data from a representative household sample of 8656 Australian men and women 16-64 years who completed a computer-assisted telephone interview.
    Main outcome measure(s): Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis usage and socio-demographics such as age, sex and socio-economic status.
    Results: At the intake interview over 90% of the sample had consumed more than 10 alcoholic beverages in their life time; 50% had smoked at least 100 cigarettes and 25% had tried cannabis at least 10 times. Just over 5% of the sample had never used any of the social-drugs. Venn diagrams would illustrate that approximately 30% of the sample had a history of both alcohol and tobacco consumption; 5% had a history of alcohol and cannabis use; and less than 1% had a history of tobacco and cannabis use. Surprisingly, over 20% had a history of using all three social-drugs. During the previous 12 months quite different patterns emerged: over 12% of the sample had not used any social-drug and less than 6% had used all three.
    Conclusions: This paper uses data from a national representative Australian sample detailing the individual and interactive prevalence of these social-drugs with the attempt to provide researchers with a better comparison between particular study samples and the general population.