Website of the Department of Health

Smoking, Drinking and Drugs Survey 2002: Data Errors

The links to the report for 2002 preliminary results and published report have been withdrawn as errors have been detected in the data. These errors are in the process of being corrected. The errors were caused by the way that some of the derived variables have been calculated and existing quality assurance procedures did not identify the errors at the time of publication, these procedures have now been tightened up

The affected variables are: whether heard of, offered or taken 'any' drugs (or any subgroup of drugs such as Class A drugs, but not these measures for specific drugs); the number of alcoholic units drunk of six different types of drinks in the last week and the overall units drunk in the last week.

The 2002 headline figures will be corrected with the publication of the 2003 Headline Figures on Wednesday 31 March 2004, and the revised 2002 report will be published in May 2004.

The Department of Health and the National Centre for Social Research apologise for any inconvenience caused to users of this information.