A NEW phenomenon of young people ''switching'' to the increasingly cheap party drug ecstasy has been fuelled by rising alcohol prices, according to drug researchers, nightclub owners and the people themselves - the nightclubbers.

The rise in alcohol prices was in part fed by federal Labor's 2009 alcopops tax.

''It is cheaper and convenient to use pills,'' said Professor Jake Najman, director of the University of Queensland's Alcohol and Drug Research and Education Centre. ''A lot of young people are making that choice to switch between alcohol and ecstasy. Pills can be cheaper, there is no question.''

The Age has found that while alcohol prices have risen sharply since 2005, ecstasy prices have fallen across Australia by close to the same amount.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that a shot of scotch in a public bar increased 25 per cent in five years. A 285 millilitre glass of beer is 23 per cent more expensive. Slabs of heavy beer cost 15 per cent more. Some Melbourne boutique bars now charge up to $14 for a single bottle of Smirnoff Ice Double Black, a flavoured vodka alcopop.