At least one in 14 people in Ireland has used cocaine at some point in their life, with men more than twice as likely as women to use the drug, research has shown.

The findings have just been released by the National Advisory Committee on Drugs and Alcohol (NACDA) and relate to surveys of almost 8,000 people carried out in 2010 and 2011.

They show that 7% of people have used cocaine at some stage, 2% in the last 12 months and 0.5% in the last month.

Men are more likely to use the drug than women, as are people in the 15-34 age group compared to those in the 35-64 age group.

The results show that there has been a fall in the use of cocaine powder since similar surveys were carried out in 2006 and 2007. For example, in the earlier surveys, 7% of current cocaine powder users had reported using the drug on 20 or more days in the month prior. In this latest survey, this figure fell to zero.

The findings also revealed that 21 was the average age for people to first take cocaine, irrespective of whether they were male or female.

Meanwhile for those who became regular cocaine users, the time between first use and regular use increased from 12 months in 2006/07, to 18 months this time.

The surveys also revealed that most users purchased the drug from people they knew, however one in five bought it from a contact not known to them personally, were given the drug by someone they did not know or accepted it from a stranger.