DrugScope has responded today to the release of new Home Office statistics on drug misuse in England and Wales from the 2006/07 British Crime Survey and accompanying data on drug seizures (1).
Apart from a ‘statistically significant’ fall in the use of magic mushrooms, illegal drug use overall was stable between 2005/06 and 2006/07. The trends between 1996 and 2006/07 show:
- a large increase in the number of people, including young people, using cocaine powder;
- since 2003/2004 cocaine has been the second most commonly used illicit drug after cannabis;
- despite continuing concern about the use of cannabis by young people, its use has fallen across all age groups;
- heroin figures within the general population are stable which supports evidence that our heroin-using population is stabilising.
For the first time ketamine has been included in the British Crime Survey –DrugScope’s Street Drug Trends Survey highlighted increased use of ketamine back in 2005.
The British Crime Survey is the most comprehensive indicator of general population trends in drug use in England and Wales, although it is important to recognise the limitations of the data. The British Crime Survey is a voluntary household survey and excludes certain sections of the population among whom we would expect drug misuse or drug dependency to be statistically significant, such as prisoners, people who are rough sleepers or otherwise homeless and young people in residential care or youth offending institutions.
Separate Home Office research suggests that there are up to 300,000 ‘problematic’ heroin and crack cocaine users in England and Wales – by comparison the British Crime Survey estimates 41,000 people used heroin and 58,000 crack cocaine in the previous year, and 25,000 and 33,000 respectively in the last month.
Responding to accompanying figures on drug seizures (Seizures of Drugs in England and Wales, 2005),DrugScope believes it is important that we maintain efforts to seize as many drugs from our streets as possible. However, the proportion of drugs actually intercepted remains a small percentage of the total amount of drugs available.
Martin Barnes, chief executive of DrugScope, said today:
“British Crime Survey figures suggest that overall drug use among the general population has remained stable since last year, with an overall downward trend in the last ten years. This is clearly encouraging news but we cannot be complacent.
“The continued use of cocaine powder, particularly among young people, is of concern. Our recent Street Drug Trends Survey highlighted the increased availability and affordability of powder cocaine, a drug which has both severe health risks and the potential for dependency.
“It is important that we stay focussed on addressing the serious drug problems that users, families and the wider community still face.”
ENDS
Notes for editors
(1)The two Home Office reports, Drug Misuse Declared: Findings of the 2006/07 British Crime Survey and Seizures of Drugs in England and Wales, 2005 are available to download from the Research Development and Statistics section of the Home Office website:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/whatsnew1.html
For more information please contact Ruth Goldsmith in the DrugScope Press Office on 020 7940 7517 (07736 895563 out of hours) or at press@drugscope.org.uk
