NEWS | Wednesday, 15 April 2009

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Recent newspaper reports suggest that cannabis use among teenagers may have ‘doubled in eight years’. But is this an accurate assessment of the statistics? KATE CALAMATTA on what the ESPAD survey really tells about youth and drugs

I GET strangely enthralled when confronted with a large report full of tables and numbers.
Statistics have a wonderful way of opening a door to the probable and the possible, the loose associations and significant findings, and all the rest. One simple table can often hint at changes in society, which can then be explored in more depth with more complex research methods. Statistics are not rocket science, and the ability to read statistics – especially when they are presented only as percentages – is within everyone’s grasp.
This is why I was astounded to read a Times of Malta’s headline which stated: “Youths on Cannabis Double in Eight Years”. Fighting my way past the linguistic awkwardness of the headline, I continued to read that “the number of students aged 15 and 16 dabbling in cannabis has practically doubled over eight years even though Maltese teenagers’ use of the substance remained below the European average”.
Clearly, this is a daunting find that warranted further investigation. Had twice the number of 15- and 16-year-olds starting smoking marijuana? What was the meaning behind this statistic?
I decided to spend some time with the report quoted in that article – The 2007 ESPAD Report: Substance Use Amongst Students in 35 European Countries – to find out what was really happening.
After reading the report, I concluded that the headline was nothing more than sensationalism masquerading as journalism. For the remainder of this article, I shall highlight the actual findings of the ESPAD report.
The Times article stated that “13% of students used cannabis in 2007, when compared to seven per cent in 1999”. Firstly, one can see that “youths on cannabis” have not doubled in eight years. When you double seven, you do not get 13; and even though they put the numbers into the article, when analysing statistics and writing articles from findings you cannot make such a simplistic error. It’s factually incorrect, misleading, and does not justify the headline.
Secondly, The ESPAD report was compiled from findings across 26+ countries in Europe from 1995. The research started in 1995, so why weren’t the first four years of data included?
Thirdly, the headline refers to “youths on cannabis”, but the report breaks down cannabis use in a number of ways: lifetime use, use in the last six months, and use in the last 30 days. As the article did not specify which data was being used, I hunted it down myself and found they were referring to ‘lifetime use’. This means anyone, aged 15 or 16 who has ever used cannabis. (see Table 1 above). What does the above data tell us that the Times of Malta article did not? It’s clear that use of marijuana/hashish has risen but still remains below the European average. Lifetime use of marijuana/hashish has increased in 12 years from 8% in 1995 to 13% in 2007. Perhaps the newspaper in question would not have liked my alternative headline: “Limited increase in hashish use over 12 years”. It does not sound quite so dramatic, would not have elicited a front page article and would not have alluded to any moral breakdown of society.
Statistics sometimes do not tell the media what the media want to hear.
So, where is the real story here? The ESPAD report is quite interesting in that it finds Malta to be average in most areas compared to the rest of Europe. The Times was to mention alcohol use, inhalants and alcohol combined with pills as other significant findings. I have presented the data alongside the hashish data. (See Table 2, opposite page)
Maltese 15- and 16-year-olds clearly drink more, use more inhalants, and use more alcohol with pills than the European average. Hashish/marijuana use is 6% lower than the European average, which again highlights the misleading nature of the Times’s headline. To put it another way: if Malta’s rankings above were taken from the Eurovision song contest, which of them would make the front page?
There was, however, one very interesting finding which focused on perception of risk. The questionnaire asked the individuals how much they thought people risked harming themselves by doing certain activities. The results are percentages of those who perceived a ‘great risk’ that people would harm themselves by doing the specified activities. (See Table 3, opposite page).
These findings highlight a far more interesting issue. Only half of Maltese 15- and 16-year-olds perceive a great risk in smoking at least one pack of cigarettes a day, while only 46% think harm can be caused by drinking four or five drinks a day. Both these figures are below the European average.
If there is limited perception of the harm that can be caused by both these toxins, there is great potential that the numbers of young drinkers and smokers will begin to rise. The report, rather than warning us of the dangers of cannabis, has enlightened us to a real hazard which can be approached by educators and the government.
As I stated at the beginning of this article, reading statistics is not rocket science. Representing them correctly to the public should be an easy skill for a journalist. In their front page headline and article of 27 March, the Times of Malta demonstrated that it is either a skill they lack or that they chose to mislead for other reasons.
Were they motivated more by sensationalism and sales, rather than objective journalism? Either way, it is the public, the kids and their parents, who will suffer from having the real stories in this report hidden from them.

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