Women Aged 50+

Pauline started smoking cannabis daily in her mid-teens and continued during her twenties while at university.

As a teenager growing up in the suburbs, Amy felt like she didn’t fit in with the young people in her neighbourhood.

Grace began taking heroin in her twenties and has taken it fairly regularly since then.

When Helen was in her twenties, she ‘drifted into’ a ‘population of people’ who took heroin and began taking it herself.

Rachel began taking heroin, cannabis and cocaine in her late teens, and says her consumption ‘escalated’ in her early twenties.

When she was in her early twenties, Annemarie experienced anxiety and panic attacks, and was prescribed benzodiazepines.