NDC: Cayman’s kids hitting the booze from 11 years old
(CNS): The average age for children in Cayman to start drinking is now 11 years old, the latest National Drug Council survey found. Alcohol remains the most used drug by young people, and more than 10% of students who took part admitted drinking alcohol within the month before the study, and of those, more than 45% had been binge drinking. The survey found that by the time they reached their teenage years, over 17% of students had consumed alcohol, and that number increased among older students.
The 2024 survey was conducted among around 3,000 students in Year 7 through Year 13 at both government and private schools. The full report has not yet been made public; only snapshots of students’ alcohol and ganja use and smoking and vaping habits have been released.
CNS has requested a copy of the full survey and report, and we are awaiting a response.
According to the snapshots, which have been published on the NDC website, smoking tobacco is on the decline and is now young people’s least used drug, but vaping is increasing rapidly.
Less than 1% of the students said they had smoked a cigarette in the last month, but more than 80% said they had used an e-cigarette, most of which contained nicotine or ganja. Students are starting to vape on average as young as twelve, and over 22% of students admitted having used a vaping pen or e-cigarette at least once.
When it comes to ganja, the earliest average use recorded was 13 years old, but the number of children using the drug is still lower than the use of alcohol or nicotine. Just 5% of students had smoked cannabis at all that age.
4.6% of all students admitted using the drug in the month before the survey, and of those, 58% said they had consumed edibles such as ganja gummies. Just over 12% of all students admitted to ever having used ganja.
See the NDC survey snapshots below (click to enlarge):
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Health, Medical Health, Mental Health
Honestly, I think much of the data is exaggerated. Until I am made to believe that such surveys are taken serious by the students that take them, these results should be taken with a grain of salt.
On the otherhand, if these results are valid then the next government better put plans in place to build:
1. A serious Drug and Alcohol Rehabilation Center that houses more than 10 or so women and men alike at a time as Caribbean Haven claim to be only able to cope with.
2. Several more HalfWay Houses for males as the Hope Foundation one in West Bay will soon be inadequate to handle the crisis that awaits Cayman.
3. Build several HalfWay Houses for females for the need greatly exist and there is no such facility that exist at the moment yet the need continues to grow and grow.
4. Hire better professionals to run the current Caribbean Haven as they same not able to handle any of their current residents as this facility is certainly a revolving door. Their treatments must be able to treatment current addicts and as such be able to cope with all types of persons and not tailored to the kind of addicts of the past that were expected to be passive and have no issues or tendencies that would disrupt the status quote.
***Cayman brace for an upheaval of our society if the government and private medical entities do not take our current and on the rise addiction problem in Cayman serious. Addicts are people that are deserving of all possible assistance and help to fight their battles and until the realisation exist in Cayman that such a problem needs more attention, and a drive by those in power to be able to do something about it, then shame on unna. Remember the next addict could be your relative, your friend, your significant other, your co-worker and list the goes on.
Yet another symptom of the rapidly escalating culture decline.
Let’s spend all the millions we might have put into substance abuse education, parenting best practice, crime prevention, and addiction treatment programs and instead buy up random trash land in George Town to build a big ugly land-locked park that nobody asked for. With a $40,000 fountain.
How about the $8,000,000 we’re paying consultants for a prison we don’t need….that could be spent to benefit our children, not wealthy foreigners.
That was well said. I might add that the only people who will feel comfortable using such a facility will be the antisocial groups prevalent around this area of G.T.
Weak churches. and governments that declare Alcohol as Essential.
Cayman values gone to crop
Our politicians set a fine example too.
This will happen when kids have kids.
It is very much happening now and here to stay.
“kids” have always been having kids… you act like high school and teen pregnacies are new. when people were married off at 17 to men like 20 years older. please sftu
What the hell are you on about 11:40am? It not being new doesn’t make it OK. My guess is the shoe fits and you’re upset about it. Maybe make better choices!!
And when Caymanians have lost all sense of shame.
Accepting our children’s bad behavior, failing in school, getting pregnant or being baby daddy, being unemployed, and going to jail all now seemingly accepted as a part of our Caribbean culture.
Discipline and moral guidance lacking, starting with West Indian teachers who consider strictness and rules to be Colonial Oppression.
*** THIS IS ALL EXPATS’ FAULT! ***
I don’t know why – but give me time and I will make something up.* Everything else is “expats’ fault” – so I am supremely confident that this will be, too.
It will definitely be expats’ fault when they politely decline to employ these child prodigies in a few years’ time.
* Please offer suggestions below in reply to this message as to how this is expats’ fault (it DEFINITELY is, we just haven’t make up the reason why, yet) – thanks in advance. /s
Troll Boss
They’re not wrong though, are they!!
Here are six reasons why Cayman’s kids hitting the booze from age 11 is obviously the fault of expats working in the Cayman Islands (merely reflecting the simple fact that outsiders are responsible for every conceivable woe here):
1. Expats brought the fancy booze. Clearly, these high-flying expats, with their imported craft beers and artisanal gins, are to blame for tempting innocent Caymanian children away from their wholesome, traditional coconut water. Before these outsiders showed up with their swanky cocktail menus, no self-respecting 11-year-old would have even dreamed of raiding the liquor cabinet—probably because it was just empty space where the diabetes-inducing soda used to sit.
2. Expats work too hard, leaving Caymanian kids unsupervised. With expats slaving away at their cushy financial jobs to keep the economy afloat, they’ve selfishly neglected to babysit the local kids, who are now free to guzzle rum at the tender age of 11. Meanwhile, Caymanian parents are too busy perfecting their fried chicken and conch fritter recipes — dishes that have heroically clogged local arteries for generations — to notice their offspring stumbling home three sheets to the wind.
3. Expats built the bars. It’s those pesky expat developers, throwing up beachfront bars and restaurants faster than you can say “type 2 diabetes epidemic”. They’ve turned every corner of Grand Cayman into a booze-soaked playground, practically begging impressionable preteens to sneak a sip. Never mind that the locals could just say no — why take responsibility when you can point at the pale-skinned architect holding a blueprint?
4. Expats ruined the schools with their fancy education. By flooding private schools with their overpaid brats and demanding silly things like “standards” and “extracurriculars”, expats have distracted Caymanian youth from their true calling: staying sober until at least 15. Now, instead of learning the noble art of frying plantain, these kids are stressed out from algebra and drowning their sorrows in cheap vodka—thanks, expat teachers!
5. Expats are secretly spiking the water suppy. Rumor has it these devious foreigners, bitter about the heat and the cost of living, have been slipping rum into the Cayman Water supply, just to watch the island implode. It’s the perfect crime: get the kids hooked young, then sit back and laugh as the locals blame everyone but their own stellar parenting skills — meanwhile, the healthcare system collapses under the weight of rum-soaked livers and bankrupt budgets, which, of course, expats will be taxed to fix.
6. Expats are the real health crisis. Speaking of healthcare, let’s not forget that Caymanians have royally screwed themselves with their garbage diets — mountains of greasy spoon fare and enough sugar to sink a cruise ship — leaving their kids predisposed to every ailment under the sun. But when the inevitable medical bills pile up and the government’s broke from mismanaging it all, who’ll get the finger? You guessed it: expats, who’ll be hit with sneaky indirect taxes to prop up a system that’s been a trainwreck long before they arrived.
So, there you have it: six rock-solid reasons why expats are the sinister masterminds behind Cayman’s boozy 11-year-olds. Why look in the mirror when you can just glare at the guy with the Canadian accent holding a piña colada?
^^^^ scumbag alert.
you missed a valid point in your tirade. expats take caymanian jobs thus keeping caymanians down ateast to some extent which in turn perpetuates a decay in caymanian family social fabric which obviously contributes to statistics such as these.
p.s. go home and pay your &&&& taxes and deal with your own immigration crisis, thx, ciao.
“Take Caymanian jobs”?!
I want what you’re smoking. There are no “Caymanian jobs” – other than “fisherman” and “tin shack builder”. For everything else, you must COMPETE. And be the best option – merely accruing pieces of paper from subsidised overseas educational establishments is just your ticket to the interview: you still must be better than all the of the COMPETIORS for the job (the clue is in the word COMPETIORS – applying for a job is a COMPETION).
We employ every Caymanian who can string a sentence together – and we vastly overpay them compared to what we would pay a similarly mediocrely-qualified and experienced employee in e.g. Australia.
We do this to keep WORC happy: it’s a form of mafia-style shakedown.
HERE’S THE TEST OF WHETHER YOU DESERVE A BETTER JOB:
1. Start your own international company.
2. Compete with everyone else.
3. If you’re better, you’ll succeed.
No takers? Perhaps because you have a tiny population, and it’s unrealistic to expect that many decent, internationally competitive employees.
See this excellent comment about this here:
“Listen, not all firms can hire junior staff to be trained up. Mine for example is too small. I need rock stars in every role from top to bottom or we can’t compete (that’s because my competitors have also hired rock stars from top to bottom). We’re too small to be training people.
This is the nature of a tiny island nation. There’s not enough volume in the job market to absorb all these junior staff. And if you take 100 random Caymanians, by definition half will perform above average and half will perform below average (that’s how averages and bell curves work). So half of any given subset of people will be below average performers, and I can’t afford to have any below average performers on my payroll. Neither can any private company.
Which is why people who perform below average repeatedly lose their jobs. For permit holders this means eventually they wash out and go home. For Caymanians, they wash out and work for Government.
Why do you think the government has such a high performance of subpar workers? Have you been impressed by any government services lately (or ever)? No…because all the consistently underperforming Caymanians end up there.
And then they write op-eds or comment on CNS about how the system is rigged and they’ve all been wronged by this company or that hotel. Look around at some of the high performing and successful Caymanians and ask them about how they got there.
Look at CUC and their executive management. Look at the water company. They’re both public companies and their executive salaries are published. Ask those folks how they got where they got. Look at Butterfield and CNB and their VPs and executive leadership…plenty Caymanians. Ask them how they got there.
They do not have this fabricated excuse of “the world is against me”.
Everyone with that excuse (globally) is full of it. Here, just as much as anywhere else.”
https://caymannewsservice.com/2025/03/a-caymanians-story-of-job-hunting-in-cayman/comment-page-1/#comment-676774
But “we need more data”, some politicians say…
not surprising considering standard of caymanian parenting and schooling
CNS: Where are you from? “A third of 11-year-olds and more than half of 13-year-olds in England have drunk alcohol.” See here.
“Approximately one out of every ten alcoholic drinks in the U.S.A. is consumed illegally. Despite age 21 being the legal drinking age, children as young as 12 years old have engaged in under-age alcoholism. In fact, more than 70 percent of teens have consumed at least one alcoholic beverage by the time they reach age 18, which is still under the legal age.” See here.
If minor children (11 year old kids) have ready access to drinking, smoking and/or drugs, with or without supervising role model parents or adults present, then it’s a failure on those parents’ watch simple as that. It doesn’t matter where the parents are from, or if the kids were at a sleepover bacchanal, the buck stops with them to be responsible for their offspring, care about them enough to help them sort choices, navigate friendships, and ensure that a responsible vetted adult is present in some way if they aren’t around…at least until they are 16.
The alcohol culture is truly sad and needs to die out for real but the parents need to take better responsibility. I can only speak for myself but the first time I ever saw cocaine in my life in Cayman was going to house parties in Crystal Harbour hosted by the private school kids in those big houses. I was only 16 years old at the time and got invited by mutual friends, I will never forget it lol. They were doing coke like it was a normal thing and when offered, I just declined. This was back in 2016, I don’t know if things have changed much since then.
Did you happen to see who the dealer was? Asking for a deputy premier…
I’d wager heavily that the vast majority of these children are from broken or dysfunctional homes.
Come on parents, try harder to stay married to one spouse and set a good example for your children by raising them well.
Or, better – simply don’t breed if you don’t come from a stable background, with high educational achievements and excellent prospects of economic success. Simply focus on enjoying your life without creating a new generation of problems.
Don’t breed?
What an assinine comment to make. Next time keep your thoughts to your vile self. Everyone will be better off including yourself.
19@2:41pm – It’s not as asinine as you might think. That person’s views are held by many, including myself. Not even exclusive to our society.
If you can’t provide a stable, nurturing and respectful environment at home, and won’t support civic and school programs/PTAs, etc., i.e can’t raise a child right, then dont breed…at least not twice.
That’s absolutely shocking, and my child complains daily of the kids smoking weed in the bathrooms and on the school field at JGHS and yet, nothing is done about it….??!!
As parents and a community – we should be so disgusted and embarrassed and enraged about this – but why isn’t anything being done? I constantly raise it at school.
It’s Cayman, man!
Most locals apparently want to legalise drugs. What could possibly go wrong!
To 10:17am: Nothing to see here. (sarcasm) We have a vape epidemic; the Compass did a full exposé on it about two years ago.
Anyone who dares discipline a child, gets a call from the parent’s MP friend…or the mother turns up at the school to abuse the, usually foreign, teacher.