One in every nine Kent people seeking help for drug and alcohol addiction is under 18.

Of the 3,693 people in treatment in Kent in 2007/08, just over 400 were under 18 and in Medway around 70 under 18s were being helped, out of a total of 846 people.

Regional statistics from the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) released this week show more than half of those youngsters had cannabis problems(57 per cent), while more than a third were being treated for alcohol misuse(37 per cent). Very few were being treated for hard drugs, with only three per cent being helped for heroin, four per cent for cocaine and one per cent for crack as the main drug of misuse.

Three quarters of all those treated in Kent, of any age, were men.

The number of young people being treated is higher than ever before, due to increased access to treatment, not a rise in drug use, according to the NTA.

NTA regional manager Fintan Hayes said: "The numbers are quite substantial but all of our indications are that drug taking amongst young people are going down. For people who are under 18, drug taking tends to be part of a wider range of issues such as truancy and family breakdown.

"You get very little of the same issue of dependence and hard addiction that you get with adults."

"Young people go into treatment for a very brief time, sometimes to get a very specialist help with some risky behaviour they're getting into. You don't often get any injecting behaviour; you get lots more use of stimulants like crack cocaine and amphetamines mixed with alcohol, so it's a very different scenario. We try to get people into and out of treatment very quickly and get them involved with children’s services, which is much more appropriate. So the numbers sometimes look bigger than you would expect, it's not the same type as adult treatment."

Mr Hayes said the main point is that more young people than ever needing treatment have been reached by treatment providers. He said: "Compared with other areas, Kent previously were missing a lot of people who really needed to be in treatment. It's not that there are any more young drug users in Kent, because we always knew they were there, but the treatment providers have been a lot more successful in finding them. The county has really been one of our success stories this year."