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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Britons spending £6.6bn a year on illegal drugs Jason Bennetto The Independent Saturday 22 Sep 2001 More than £6.6bn is being spent on illegal drugs every year in the United Kingdom - the equivalent of £113 for every man, woman and child - the most comprehensive study yet of the market for illicit substances has concluded. Home Office figures also suggest the Government is losing the war on drugs, with the level of use apparently still rising among the young in the past two years despite a national strategy aimed at significantly reducing demand. The biggest market in the UK is for heroin (worth £2.3bn) and crack cocaine (£1.8bn). Cannabis accounts for £1.5bn in street sales, cocaine is worth £352m, ecstasy sales are estimated at £294m and amphetamines £257m. There are an estimated 700,000 people who take drugs more than once a week and nearly 5 million people who take drugs occasionally - less than once a week. The figures are contained in a Home Office-commissioned report, Sizing the UK Market for Illicit Drugs. It uses information about prices and the level of use obtained from interviews with about 1,600 people. The link between drugs and crime is also reinforced by figures showing that drug users each commit, on average, 340 offences every year, rising to 432 for heroin and crack cocaine abusers who spend on average £15,000 a year on their habits. A separate study has found worrying evidence that suggests drug abuse among the 16 to 24-year-old age group is on the rise, particularly of cocaine where the proportion of users rose from 1 per cent to 5 per cent between 1994 and 2000. In the 16-19 age group, cocaine use rose from one in every 100 people to four in 100 during the same period. Young people appear to be using cocaine alongside ecstasy as the "club drug" of choice, says the report. The report, Drug Misuse Declared in 2000: Results from the British Crime Survey, shows that in the past two years - the period covered by the Government's anti-drugs strategy - the use of heroin, cocaine, crack, LSD and ecstasy rose by about 1 per cent among 16 to 24-year-olds. This rise is a blow for the Government whose target set in 1998 is to reduce Class A drug abuse among people under 25 by a half by 2008. Cannabis remains the most widely used drug, with a quarter of people aged under 25 having taken it in the past year. There is some good news in the latest figures - overall drug use among 16 to 19-year-olds has fallen from 34 per cent in 1994 to 27 per cent in 2000.
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