ESRC Society Today

Illegal drugs are a major social issue in Britain and are constantly the subject of controversy and debate. Drug use and misuse is widespread and it has been argued that there has been a major shift in public attitudes towards certain forms of illegal drug use, with for example recreational drug use now more or less accepted by young people as a normal aspect of their lives. Despite the high profile of drugs policy, very little data is available on public attitudes, with a particular deficit in data which is comparable over time. The research will address this deficit, and it will provide evidence to support or refute the claim of a shift in attitudes. It will do so by repeating questions on attitudes to illegal drugs, which were last asked of the public in 1983, 1993 and 1995 as part of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey. The research will show whether public attitudes towards cannabis and heroin have become more lenient since 1995, when it appeared that, for cannabis at least, opinion was moving in this direction. The project will also measure public attitudes towards a range of other relevant policy issues, such as harm reduction strategies, the medical use of cannabis, employee and driver drug testing, and attitudes to ecstasy and cocaine. This will provide the only large-scale and systematic source of information about British attitudes to possible drug policies. There is some evidence that the drugs situation in Scotland differs from the rest of Britain, and thus so might attitudes. To gain a large enough sample in Scotland to be able to make this comparsion, a similar set of questions will be asked on the 3rd Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey. A final aim is to determine whether younger peoples more tolerant attitudes is something they will grow out of as they mature, or whether there truly is a generation gap that will stay with these people as they age. This will be achieved by tracking the attitudes of people in the same generation since 1983. The BSA and SSA surveys are carried out to the highest academic standards and routinely ask a large number of factual, demographic and behavioural questions which enable a very comprehensive analysis. The results will be disseminated through articles, international conferences, and a BSA and SSA book chapter

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