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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Drug users spending £6.6bn a year Philip Johnston The Telegraph Saturday 22 Sep 2001 ILLEGAL drug users spend four times more on their habit each year than the entire country spends across the counter on legitimate medicines. Estimates published by the Home Office yesterday suggest that the size of the drug market could be about £6.6 billion; last year, £1.7 billion was spent on cold and cough remedies, analgesics and other medicines. The sum also exceeds the total national spending on footwear (£5.4 billion), out-of-home entertainment (£4.25 billion), eating in restaurants (£5.7 billion), soft drinks (£5.8 billion) and biscuits and cakes (£2.68 billion). The figure emerged from the first scientific attempt to measure the scale of the drugs problem in Britain. Statisticians who tried to put a figure on the trade three years ago placed its value at "anything between £3.9 billion and £8.5 billion". The new figure, while still an estimate, is the most accurate obtained so far. Research shows that, where hard drugs are concerned, heroin has the highest number of regular users - 270,000, a far higher figure than previously suggested. This is followed by crack cocaine (177,908); powder cocaine (118,000) and amphetamines (126,000). There are an estimated three million cannabis users and 430,000 take ecstasy occasionally. In terms of value, the biggest market is for heroin, at £2.3 billion, followed by crack cocaine, £1.8 billion, and cannabis, £1.57 billion. Even in prison, drugs valued at more than £10 million are consumed every year, smuggled into jails by friends and relatives of inmates. The Government is now three years into its seven-year "war on drugs", which appears to have made little impact. Ministers set targets to reduce heroin and cocaine use among the young by 25 per cent by 2005 and 50 per cent by 2008. Heroin misuse had not declined at all and cocaine taking has risen rapidly, especially among young men aged 16 to 19. Lower prices, higher supply and fashion appear to have contributed to its greater use. Cocaine is increasingly taking the place of LSD and amphetamines. In 2000, one quarter of people aged 16 to 29 admitted using an illegal drug during the year. Nearly half had tried cannabis at some time. The incidence of misuse rises rapidly among criminals. Researchers found that three-quarters of people arrested for burglary, theft or shoplifting had taken heroin or cocaine. Users of hard drugs were responsible for an average of 430 acquisitive crimes each in the past year, 10 times more than non-drug users. The Home Office estimates it costs regular heroin and cocaine users up to £400 a week to feed their habits. Users of crack and cocaine among those arrested stole property worth £15,000 a year. Failure to make any inroads into the problem has seen the office of "drugs tsar" downgraded to a part-time role and the transfer of policy from the Cabinet Office to the Home Office. Although the research has shown no significant increases in Class A drug taking - apart from cocaine - there have been no marked declines either. The study, based on results from the British Crime Survey, which has 20,000 respondents, suggests that big falls in the use of LSD, amphetamines and "poppers" among 16-19 year olds may be "grounds for guarded optimism".
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