UK's 12-year-old druggies

Unfortunately, I wouldn't say I'm really surprised. I don't know if this German book is known in the US or UK, but at least in Poland it has been immensely popular. I mean "Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhof ZOO" by Christiane F. Now Christiane is about 40 years old, clean and a happy mother of a young son, though conscious that she has wasted many years of her life. But in the book she describes her childhood and youth in West Berlin and her way towards addiction. Christiane began with hashish at the age of 12, later she took LSD and prescription drugs, and shortly before her 14th birthday she took heroin for the first time. And it seems that it was a whole phenomenon in late 70s urban West Germany - young children becoming drug addicts. Drugs were easily available, drug business flourished in youth clubs and discos. And children were often left to care for themselves - their parents were constantly busy, didn't really have much contact with their kids, in case of Christiane's district its very architecture made children personae non gratae - no playgrounds, "stone desert" all around - in such an environment children were really looking forward to growing up a bit so that they could start going to discos instead of trying to play where it was impossible or even not allowed.
In Germany it really became a whole problem, people working with addicts pointed out that the existing system of addict rehabilitation isn't suited to such kids, tha youngest victim of a lethal overdose was just 13... I don't know how "deep" is the British situation, but such problems never appear without a reason. Doesn't pop culture say children it's really not trendy to be a child?...