Substance use prevalent among Tobago’s youths

More than one in three Form Four and Five stu­dents sur­veyed in To­ba­go re­port­ed hav­ing used al­co­hol in their life­time, ac­cord­ing to re­search which crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says pro­vides an im­por­tant pic­ture of sub­stance use among young peo­ple as the Gov­ern­ment moves to raise the le­gal age for al­co­hol, cannabis and gam­bling.

Dr Seep­er­sad pro­vid­ed the 2024 re­search, con­duct­ed among Form Four and Five stu­dents in gov­ern­ment sec­ondary schools in To­ba­go, which found that 34.6 per cent re­port­ed life­time al­co­hol use, com­pared with 11.7 per cent who re­port­ed mar­i­jua­na use and one per cent who re­port­ed co­caine use.

Dr Seep­er­sad said re­searchers reached about 80 per cent of all en­rolled Form Four and Five stu­dents in To­ba­go, mak­ing the find­ings a sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion of that stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.