The Crime and Justice Survey identified five vulnerable groups of youth: those who have ever been under government-sponsored care, those who have ever been homeless, truants, those suspended from school, and serious/frequent offenders. Although those in these vulnerable groups composed 28 percent of the sample, they accounted for 61 percent of Class A drug users in the past year. Only 5 percent of those not included in the vulnerable groups used drugs frequently during the past 12 months; 24 percent of those in vulnerable groups were frequent drug users during the same period. Only 4 percent of those who were not vulnerable used Class A drugs in the past year, while 16 percent of those in vulnerable groups used Class A drugs during the same period. Further, youth who qualified for more than one vulnerable group had significantly higher levels of drug use than those in just one vulnerable group; for example, frequent drug use in the past year for those in more than one vulnerable group was 39 percent, compared with 18 percent for those in only one vulnerable group. Those in the vulnerable groups of homelessness and being under government care had the lowest levels of drug use among vulnerable groups, and serious or frequent offenders and truants had the highest levels of drug use. The 2003 Crime and Justice Survey had a nationally representative sample of 10,079 respondents aged 10 to 65 years old living in private households in England and Wales. The response rate was 74 percent. The 2003 Crime and Justice Survey included a booster sample of 10- to 25-year-olds (n=4,574) with a 74-percent response rate. 4 tables and 4 references