Drugs: Misuse
Home Department
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion, Green)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of the causes of recent trends in drug use; and if she will make a statement.
Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane, Liberal Democrat)
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) contains a self-completion module on self-reported use of illicit drugs which is the main source for estimates of levels of and trends in drug use in the household population. These questions are only asked of adults aged 16 to 59 residing in households in England and Wales. Data are published annually in the Home Office publication ‘Drug Misuse Declared':
The 2011-12 CSEW showed that the proportion of people taking any illicit drug in the last year was 8.9% down from a peak of 12.3% in the 2003-04 survey. This decrease is due in large part to a notable decline in cannabis use, from 10.8% in the 2003-04 survey to 6.9% in the 2011-12 survey.
An assessment of the underlying causes of the decline in the use of drugs has not been made by the Home Office. The Secretary of State for the Home Department will not be making a statement on this.