YOUNG people believe that anxiety about the effects of climate change is a plausible reason for immoderate use of recreational drugs.

A report by the UK Health Security Agency suggests the ploy will work especially well for children of middle-class parents always handwringing about global warming while continuing to take three foreign holidays a year.

It continued: “You could get into activism, but drugs are much easier and have the benefit of not being illegal if you’re Caucasian.

“Basically, say you were driven to have hedonistic nights out soaring on MDMA because it was the only way to escape your anguish about the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef and they’ll feel too guilty to rip your flimsy story apart.

“We did, which is why this report is such a half-arsed piece of crap. We wrote the whole thing on the comedown and blamed trauma.”

19-year-old Jordan Gardner said: “Yeah, I heard the Manx shearwater was endangered and I had to dissociate. Hence ketamine, hence me getting kicked out of Cambridge.

“How can you criticise that, knowing it was your heedless generation who doomed us all to a future of climate chaos? You can’t. Safe. Best excuse ever.”