The 2011 Australian Secondary Students’ Alcohol and Drug survey was
conducted during the academic school year of 2011. This was the tenth survey
in a series that commenced in 1984 assessing use of tobacco and alcohol, and
the sixth to include questions on the use of over-the-counter and illicit
substances. Just under 25,000 secondary students aged between 12 and 17
years participated in the survey, in which they were asked about their lifetime
and current use of tobacco, alcohol, analgesics, tranquilisers and illicit
substances and related behaviour. In this report we present prevalence
estimates of use of the different substances in 2011 within each age between 12
and 17 years for males and females. We also compare estimates found in 2011
with those from surveys conducted in 2008 and 2005, and for these analyses we
focus on estimates for the age groups 12- to 15-year-olds, 16- to 17-year-olds
and 12- to 17-year-olds.