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Grange Hill's kids asked Britain to "Just Say No" to drugs more than 25 years ago, but it seems their plea fell on deaf ears. One in three adults in England and Wales have used illicit drugs in their lifetime, according to the latest British Crime Survey, with almost 3 million adults breaking the law to pop a pill, roll a joint, inject heroin or snort a line of cocaine, among other narcotics, in the past year alone.

But long before Zammo Maguire brought the issue of addiction to mainstream children's TV, drug use in the UK was well under way. As Harry Shapiro, rock journalist and author of Waiting for the Man: The Story of Drugs and Popular Music, says, there have always been "tipping points for drugs down the decades": in the 1950s, when there were only a reported 317 addicts to "manufactured" drugs in Britain, the idea of the alcoholic was born; a decade on, the counterculture's cherished LSD was perceived as such a threat that, in 1966, two national newspapers urged the government to outlaw it.

By 1979, cannabis use had peaked; the "heroin epidemic" hit Britain's cities in the 1980s and the Trainspotting generation was born; the rave scene and designer drugs of the 1990s followed and the Home Office estimated that 1.5 million Ecstasy tablets were being popped every weekend in 1995, the same year Leah Betts died four hours after taking the drug, and her haunting image made front-page news. By the noughties, the UK was branded "Europe's cocaine capital" by the UN, with the number of users rising by 25 per cent between 2008 and 2009, peaking at 1 million. k

The addiction psychiatrist and founder of the Global Drug Survey, Adam Winstock, has defined the current decade as one of "unparalleled choice", and while cocaine, Ecstasy and cannabis remain Britain's most popular drugs, new "legal highs" and other synthetic drugs are appearing on the market at the rate of one a week, warns the EU's drug agency, which says 10 per cent of Brits have tried them.

The Home Affairs Committee is currently exploring government policy and sanctions regarding drugs, and earlier this year heard the comedian, actor and renowned former user Russell Brand tell them that there remains a "wilful ignorance" about just what fuels Britain's addiction. Admitting that his life had been blighted by excess, Brand added that drug addiction was primarily "an illness".

Do others agree? We asked those who have been affected by each decade's drug of choice since the 1950s. Some credit them with opening up their world; others nearly had their lives destroyed; while the rest took them for fun. But what they all agree is that if Grange Hill's motto is falling on deaf ears, Britain needs to find new ways of broaching the conversation.

1950s Alcohol

James McPherson, 76, from Glasgow, had his first drink in 1952. Six decades later and after suffering blackouts, broken bones and hallucinations as a result of his alcoholism, he says he thinks he has his relationship with the substance under control.

"I had my first drink at 17; it's what everyone did. As far as Glasgow was concerned, all the fathers seemed to drink at the weekend. There didn't seem to be many drugs in Glasgow then I never saw anyone with hash. Maybe in London, but not where I was.

"Pubs used to shut at about 9.30pm, so people would throw down a couple of whiskeys at the last minute. It's a wee bit different now, I don't see that many drunken people nobody can afford to drink seven days a week and the pubs are open all day.

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