It's going bad for One Direction as 11-year-old fans say: We want to try drugs too after Zayn Malik's video

One Direction faced mounting pressure to apologise yesterday as it emerged they had inspired young fans to experiment with drugs.

Children as young as 11 vowed on social networking sites to try cannabis for the first time, saying one of the band members looked ‘hot’ in a video of him smoking it.

The pledges by youngsters to copy the boys came as fans and parents tried selling their tickets for upcoming gigs online – for half the face value.

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Anger: Critics have urged One Direction's two members to apologise after children praised the 'joint' video

Viagogo, the world’s largest ticket marketplace, saw a 79 per cent spike in people trying to get rid of the tickets in the 24 hours after the footage emerged.

Tickets for the majority of the concert venues – including Wembley stadium and Manchester’s Etihad stadium were being sold for as little as £24, with reduced tickets also available on sites such as Gumtree.

Last night drug campaigners reacted with fury after the boy band still refused to say sorry, despite calls from fans, parents and politicians.

One charity branded the stars ‘stupid young men dicing with death’ and said it was ‘horrendous’ they had not yet apologised or showed any remorse.

Just hours after the Daily Mail’s website published footage of Louis Tomlinson, 22, and Zayn Malik, 21, smoking a ‘joint’ before performing in South America last month, they were back on stage in the UK.

On Wednesday they played the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, on the first leg of a two-week tour.

Tomlinson appeared tired and weary on stage – having allegedly struggled to sleep since the fallout – but he showed no signs of regret to the thousands of screaming young girls in the crowd.

No remorse: Tomlinson and Malik on stage in Sunderland on Wednesday at their first appearance after the video

Damaging: Zayn lights up a 'joint' as he and Louis Tomlinson are driven to their gig in Lima, Peru last month

Malik barely said a word during the 90-minute show.

After seeing the footage, fans began tweeting using the hashtag ‘#zouispassmethatblunt’ – an amalgamation of the boys’ names followed by another term for a ‘joint’.

One fan wrote: ‘I just turned 11 and idk [I don’t know] what a blunt is but I wanna [sic] smoke it #zouispassmethatblunt.’

Another added: ‘I know that marijuana isn’t good for us … but damn I want to try smoking weed with them.’

A Twitter user called Anthika wrote: ‘Zayn smoking weed is hot. I wanna try weed one day …’

But despite the Mail yesterday making the band aware of the potentially harmful effect their actions have had on young fans, a One Direction spokesman said their only comment was still: ‘This matter is in the hands of our lawyers.’

Lucy Dawe, of charity Skunk Sense, told the Mail: ‘They’ve got these young people that are hanging on to every word they say and instead of showing them how to behave, they are being the worst role models they could possibly be and encouraging young people to do something that could seriously damage their health.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: One Direction's Zayn and Louis smoke 'joint'

Enraged: Parents tried to sell of their children's tickets for the upcoming One Direction gigs for as little as £15 - half the face value - after the now infamous 'joint' video was published, ticket giant viagogo has said

‘It is absolutely devastating. The young girls have absolutely no clue of the dangers of cannabis. They are stupid young men, dicing with death.’

A number of £30 seats at the band’s Sunday show in Manchester were offered for £15 online and a £42.50 ticket for Wembley was advertised at £24. A seller on Gumtree had listed their ticket for £0 and asked for someone to make an offer.

A Viagogo spokesman said many ‘bargain’ tickets were now on sale at ‘half the box office price’.

StubHub, a ticket re-sale firm owned by eBay, yesterday said there were 4,000 One Direction tickets available on the site. Many of the band’s young admirers turned on their former idols by posting photos of themselves ripping or burning their tickets.

Half an hour before the Sunderland gig this week, band member Liam Payne tweeted: ‘Right everybody concert times lets try and keep the pg rating for Christ sake somebody help me restore sanity.’

Fellow member Harry Styles was said to be furious with Tomlinson and Malik. A source told the Sun: ‘Harry is annoyed … [he] thinks it was a stupid and reckless thing for Louis to allow to be filmed in the first place.’