IT IS too early to call it a trend, but the disclosure today that, for the first time in a decade, teenagers are smoking and drinking less is welcome nonetheless.

For if more youngsters are freed from the peer pressures that go with under-age smoking and drinking, then fewer will embark on adulthood exposed to two of the greatest causes of preventable illness and premature death in Britain today.

Alas, this positive prospect, revealed today in a report today by the Office for National Statistics, is tempered by the worrying disclosure that more than a third of 15-year-olds have tried drugs.

We must hope that the effort and education that lies behind the encouraging progress against teenage smoking and drinking continues and can now in turn do the same for the battle against drugs.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.