Presenting: the 2026 Felix Drug Survey
After a long wait, it is our pleasure to present Felix’s first Drug Survey results. Keen to diversify this newspaper’s survey topics (currently, just sex) into more highbrow issues, last May the team launched a survey interrogating Imperial students’ consumption of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and other psychoactive substances.
There have been ill-fated attempts in the past at tackling such questions – most recently in 2023 – but Felicine pages have never seen their results. To be frank, the long delay between data collection and the completion of this feature strengthened the belief of cynic editors in a “Drug Survey curse.” What fools! No dataset however patchy and ill-designed is any match for a team of determined Imperial students in an office with a coffee machine, and here we are.
The students who answered the Drug Survey were consistently more prone to consumption than youths in the national surveys we found. We think that self-selection of boozy, ciggy, and otherwise druggy students explain this discrepancy, which is likely not an accurate representation of the habits of the wider student body.
Although the occasional celebratory pint may be justified, the use of any substance that is addictive or harmful is not cautioned, and our publishing of this data should by no means be taken as encouragement. On the contrary, we hope that shedding light on students’ struggles with substance use and abuse will serve as a cautionary tale to readers. Below, you will find advice on safe drug use, and signposting for help.
Finally, credits. The original questionnaire was written by Mohammad Majlisi, the previous Editor-in-Chief. The graphs on this spread were made by Loki Dunn, Emrys King, David Loughlin, and Emma Rothwell. The Felix image to the left was created by Juliettte Flatau. The illustration on page 14 and this issue’s back cover were drawn by Ksenia Ivanova. The image on page 27 is the work of Nadia Johnson.
We hope you enjoy this read, and we welcome any feedback or comments via the usual channels. As we like to say, keep the cat zonked!
