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More than 50% of young people in Liverpool admit to having taken cocaine, a new report claims.

The finding is part of research that shows an "epidemic" of drug use, with respondents saying they take drugs and drinking to enhance their sex lives.

Researchers from Liverpool John Moores University surveyed youngsters from nine European cities in their study.

Drug and alcohol charity Addaction said the city had been unfairly pinpointed but the findings were not shocking.

The poll was carried out among 1,341 youngsters and was led by Professor Mark Bellis, from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).

It showed a third of men and a quarter of women, aged 16 to 35, drank to increase their chances of having sex.

An "epidemic" of recreational drug use and binge drinking is exposing millions of youngsters to drugs, which increases their chance of unsafe sex and increased sexual partners, experts warned.

The authors said these substances altered their sexual decisions and increased their chances of unsafe and regretted sex.

"For many, substance use has become an integral part of their strategic approach to sex, locking them into continued use," they said.

'Unfairly' targeted

The cities included were Liverpool, Vienna, Brno in the Czech Republic, Berlin, Athens, Venice, Lisbon, Ljubljana in Slovenia, and Palma, Spain.

But Elliot Elam, spokesperson for Addaction, the UK's largest drugs and alcohol charity, said: "I think this report does pinpoint Liverpool a little unfairly.

"Liverpool was the only British city surveyed and it's like saying Palma is representative of the whole of Spain - it's not.

"Although I'm not totally shocked by the statistics, we know we have a problem as compared to the rest of Europe in some areas.

"Drugs, particularly cocaine, are very prevalent and readily available."

He accepted that people "experiment", but often do not have access to enough information to make proper decisions about what they take.

"There is still an acceptability and cachet to taking cocaine," he said.

"[But] most young won't take drugs in isolation they won't just take cocaine, ecstasy or cannabis, they will take whatever is available."

News and rumors about the iPhone’s global expansion keep rolling in.

Citing a source at Swisscom, Lausanne-based Le Matin Online reported on Thursday that Apple had concluded an agreement to bring the 3G iPhone to Switzerland this summer. Swisscom, with 5.1 million subscribers, is the country’s largest mobile carrier.

Meanwhile, France Telecom CFO Gervais Pellissier said on Wednesday that his company was in talks with Apple to extend their partnership beyond France and into “more than just two countries.” He was responding to a journalist’s question about whether the company was hoping to secure rights to sell the iPhone in Spain and Poland, the largest countries in Europe still without an iPhone carrier.

Also on Wednesday, America Movil confirmed that it had signed a deal to bring the iPhone to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. America Movil, based in Mexico City and controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, has 159.2 million subscribers.

Earlier this week, Vodafone announced that it had signed an agreement to carry the iPhone in 10 countries, Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The same day, Telecom Italia announced that it had also secured the rights to sell the phone in Italy, leading to speculation that Apple had abandoned its original iPhone business model and was no longer demanding revenue sharing in return for exclusivity.

But France Telecom’s Pellissier said that his company was sticking to the terms of its original agreement, which gives it the exclusive right to sell the iPhone in France for another two and a half years. France Telecom is resisting pressure to lower the price of the original iPhone — as O2 and T-Mobile did in the U.K. and Germany, respectively — at least until the 3G iPhone arrives. “We’ll see with the next model,” said Pellissier, according to Macworld, adding that the arrival of a new iPhone “will boost sales.” Pellissier declined to give exact sales figures, but said his company had sold more than 100,000 since November, 2007.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, exclusivity agreements may soon be the exception, not the rule. He notes that the Vodafone announcement, unlike press releases issued by the first wave of carriers, “did not reference any exclusive terms.” He expects Apple will start to feel the impact of the loss of revenue sharing from these nonexclusive deals in 2009, but still views them as a net positive for the company.

“While we expected an international rollout in CY08 (with the exception of China), this announcement is both sooner and more expansive that we were expecting. … The iPhone’s international rollout is about 6 months ahead of our original expectations.”
On Tuesday, April 29, Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest cellular carrier, announced that it too had signed a deal to carry the iPhone “later this year.”

Meanwhile, stocks of first-generation iPhones are running low. Spot shortages continue in the U.S., and Engadget reports that O2 on Thursday posted a notice on its website that iPhones — both the 8G and 16G models — are no longer available in its stores.

The 8G model was on sale in the U.K., but the 16G model sold at full price until the shelves ran dry.

O2 has confirmed reports that the iPhone is not currently available anywhere in the UK, and customers may have to wait for the putative 3G Apple iPhone.

Last month the price of the 8GB Apple iPhone was slashed to £169 in preparation for the release of a 3G iPhone, which Apple is expected to launch in the US at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 9.

Stock of both the 8GB and the 16GB Apple iPhone models, have flown off UK shelves, forcing service provider O2 to admit that no stock remains and the original iPhone will not re-appear. However, with no definite UK release date for the 3G iPhone, Brits could be waiting some time before they can get their hands on any model of Apple's hybrid mobile phone, media player and web browser.

The Carphone Warehouse has not yet officially confirmed it has no iPhones available, but its website highlights that they have no stock.

Both O2 and The Carphone Warehouse have said that the 16GB iPhone may yet appear later this month, but the word is not to expect a lot of stock to arrive.