One in three arrested on hard drugs

One arrested person in three is on hard drugs

By David Harrison and Ben Leapman, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:54pm BST 14/04/2007

Up to one person in three arrested on suspicion of crimes in Britain is on hard drugs, the Government will be told this week.

A damning report will blame heroin and cocaine addicts for high levels of offending, particularly shoplifting, as they steal to fund their habit.

The report also finds that the Government's war on drugs - and hard drugs in particular - has had no impact on drug use in the UK, which has the highest level of drug addiction and the second highest level of drug-related deaths in Europe.

The number of heroin addicts has risen from about 5,000 in 1975 to a present estimate of 281,000 in England alone. The cost to society of drug-related crime has spiralled to £13 billion a year.

The report, by two leading academics, used data from a previously unseen Home Office survey of 7,500 arrests, which shows that 18 per cent of those surveyed admitted taking heroin in the month before their arrest, while 15 per cent had taken crack cocaine. Some of the 46 per cent who took cannabis were also users of hard drugs.

A senior Scotland Yard officer described the latest figures as "a serious indicator of the connection between drugs and crime" and said that the real figures could be even higher.

"It is vital that we get cocaine and heroin addicts into treatment and reduce the appalling harm caused by drug-related crime," he said.

A Conservative Party spokesman said that the figures were "a shocking indictment of the Government's failure to tackle the country's drugs crisis".

The paper's publication will mark the launch of the UK Drug Policy Commission. The commission will analyse the impact of existing drug laws and investigate whether radical solutions, such as providing addicts with free heroin on the NHS, could reduce the harm done by drugs. It will be headed by Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired the inquiry in 2000 that led to the Government relaxing the law on cannabis.

Alex Stevens, of the University of Kent, and Professor Peter Reuter, of the University of Maryland, concluded that some addicts commit high numbers of offences, most commonly shoplifting, to fund their drug use.

The report also found that illicit drugs might be linked to violent crime "through the effects of stimulants, such as crack cocaine, on aggression and through the operation of the illegal market, which is regulated by violence and fear".

A spokesman for the charity DrugScope said that few among those arrested would be taking both heroin and cocaine. He also said that the proportion of suspects who were charged and found to be on hard drugs could be much higher - as many as six out of 10 - than the one in three figure for those who were arrested.

"As many as 60 per cent of those who are charged with criminal offences have some dependency on hard drugs so the figure related to arrests does not really tell the full story of the link between hard drugs and crime," he said.

Growth in heroin addiction has been fuelled by a slump in the street price.

Dame Ruth said that the commission, to be launched on Wednesday, would look at "evidence-based" policy options.

"We simply do not know enough about which elements of drug policy work, why they work and where they work well," she said. "The commission has been set up to address this by providing independent and objective analysis of drug policy and programmes."