Over a third of UK teens take Xanax

RSS Feed

Over a third of UK teens take Xanax

March 27th, 2018

Awake Goy

Over a third of UK teens take Xanax

Results of the Biggest UK Survey On Teen Xanax Use Over a third of young people told VICE they have friends who take Xanax.
Vice.com

Illustration by Owain Anderson

How do you report on a drug that the vast majority of people don’t know exists?

Counterfeit Xanax in the UK had, until recently, gone relatively ignored by the press and government, despite its increasingly widespread use over the past couple of years.

Anecdotally, people started taking it in their masses in 2016, with the summer of 2017 already spoken of in semi-mythical tones by drug dealers and recreational users; the Snapchat generation’s “mephedrone summer of 2009”.

As I wrote on VICE in January of this year, “Xanax has become such a common part of sixth-form education that … the drug’s use is seemingly viewed as on par with smoking behind the bike sheds or necking Lambrini on lunch break.” The scale really does feel significant – but has never been quantifiable. For a variety of reasons – from the notorious lack of funding for drugs research, to the time it has taken for people nowhere near a classroom or a Supreme queue to realise this is now an issue – the stats aren’t there to add due weight to the discussion.

If evidence is non-numerical, existing most vividly in sesh tales and harm prevention forums, what do we know about the drug’s reach?

Firstly, Xanax – the name given to the benzodiazepine alprazolam by manufacturer Pfizer – is only available on private prescription in the UK, so overwhelmingly, the “Xanax” that people in the UK are taking is not legitimate. Made by DIY producers who’ve got their hands on powdered alprazolam, it’s bought off the dark web or via social media, sold by young dealers, friends or acquaintances. We also know that its use is prevalent; in the context of rising teen drug use, WEDINOS – the UK’s publicly funded drug-monitoring service – ranked alprazolam as third in the 2016-17 top ten most commonly detected New Psychoactive Substances in the UK. But that’s about it.