Young people aren’t reckless. They’re confused — and we’ve left them that way.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg AO

February 4, 2026

Child & Adolescent Psychologist, Author, Founding member CanTeen, Founding psychologist SchoolTV, Patron of Read the Play, Accredited Mental Health First Aid Trainer

February 4, 2026At first glance, the latest survey from the Burnet Institute looks reassuring. Young people are drinking less. They know vaping is harmful. They are, on paper at least, more health-literate than any generation before them. And yet the same young people are vaping in record numbers, using harder drugs more frequently, and remain dangerously misinformed about sexual health. The Burnet Institute’s Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll survey reveals something far more troubling than “risky youth behaviour”. It exposes a widening chasm between what young people know and what they are actually able to do in the real world.

Take vaping. Young people rated its harmfulness at a staggering 89 out of 100. Yet nearly two-thirds still use e-cigarettes. That’s not ignorance. That’s addiction meeting accessibility, peer pressure and stealth marketing — in an environment where anaemic regulation lags years behind reality. As Associate Professor Megan Lim rightly points out, knowledge alone isn’t enough. Expecting awareness to trump addiction is like handing someone a fire safety brochure and sending them into a burning building.

Then there’s sex education — or rather, the absence of it. Despite unprecedented access to information online, many young Australians lack basic, practical understanding of sexual health, consent and sexually transmitted infections. Porn has become the lead sex educator for young people. Social media fills the gaps. Silence does the rest. We should stop pretending that “they can Google it” is a public health strategy.

The drug data is equally worrying. Seven in ten respondents have used illicit drugs. Cocaine and ketamine use are rising, even as MDMA declines. The Alcohol and Drug Foundation reminds us that nationally, drug use is “stable” — but stable does not mean safe, especially for the developing brain. And here’s the irony: at the same time as drug use remains high, alcohol consumption is falling sharply. Research from Flinders University shows Gen Z are far more likely than Baby Boomers to abstain from alcohol altogether.

This matters. It tells us young people are capable of behaviour change when the environment supports it. We restricted alcohol advertising and promotion, (sporting events still have a loophole) but alcohol is harder to glamorise now. Drink-driving laws are clear. Social norms have shifted. Messaging has been consistent. We haven’t done the same for vaping, hard drugs or sexual health. Instead, we’ve relied on fear-based messaging, patchy education, and the comforting myth that young people will simply “make better choices” if we warn them loudly enough. They won’t — because no generation ever has.

Which is why the Victorian Premier’s reported consideration of abolishing the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation is not just short-sighted, it is insanity. VicHealth has arguably done more for adolescent health promotion than any other organisation in the state: driving shifts in attitudes to smoking and alcohol, funding school- and community-based programs, and building exactly the kind of long-term, evidence-based prevention infrastructure this survey says we need more of, not less. Dismantling that capacity at the very moment we are asking young people to navigate more complex risks than ever would widen the gap between knowledge and action even further.

If we genuinely care about youth wellbeing, we need to move beyond awareness campaigns and into structural action: tighter regulation of vaping products, modernised and mandatory sex education, honest harm-minimisation frameworks, and adults who are willing to talk — plainly and often — about risk, pleasure, consent and consequence.

Young people are not broken. The system around them is. And until we fix that, surveys like this won’t shock us — they’ll simply confirm what young people already know: they are navigating adult-level risks with child-level support. That is the real disconnect.