UK EMCDDA drug indicator consistencies

John Corkery, BA Hons, MSc, MPhil
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Department of Mental Health - Addictive Behaviour
St George's Hospital Medical School
University of London

I have plotted time series for four of the main drug types against 5 key indicators (3 in the case of ecstasy): last year use, number of seizures (UK), number of persons found guilty or cautioned GB/UK), deaths (England and Wales only), and RDMD episodes reported in 6 months September each year (GB), except for 2001 (March). There appears to be some considerable consistency in some of these trends.

It should be noted that information for ecstasy is not given in published statistics on reports to the Regional Drug Misuse Databases in England. Detailed statistics are not yet available from the National Drug Treatrment Monitoring System giving breakdowns by drug type.
Drug seizure figures for 2002 are not yet available.
Drug offender statistics for 2001 and 2002 are not yet available.
British crime survey figures for heroin, methadone and to a lesser extent for cocaine and crack have been extrapolated from very low levels and are thus subject to quality issues.