The UK Drugs Situation:
Data, information and uses
Charlotte Davies, UK Focal Point Project Manager
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UK Focal Point on Drugs
• Jointly based at the Department of Health and the North West
Public Health Observatory, Liverpool John Moores University.
• One of 30 Focal Points across Europe.
• Statutory requirement to provide data and information to the
European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction
(EMCDDA).
• Covers the whole of the United Kingdom.
• Work with a wide range of partners including government
departments, devolved administrations, and academics.
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UK Focal Point on Drugs’ partners
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5 KEY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL
INDICATORS
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General population surveys
Adults (16-59/64) – household surveys usually
crime surveys
Children (11-15) – school surveys
Lifetime; last year; last month
Frequency of use
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Problem drug use
EMCDDA definition: Injecting drug use or longduration/regular use of opioids, cocaine and/or
amphetamines
COUNTRY
England
ESTIMATE
RATE PER 1,000
306,150
8.93
1,395
1.28
Scotland
55,328
16.16
Wales
16,389
8.46
379,262
9.31
Northern Ireland
United Kingdom
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Problem drug use
* Wales
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Treatment Demand Indicator
WALES
UK
EUROPE
n
%
n
%
n
%
Amphetamines
947
7.1
3,701
3.0
-
-
Benzodiazepines
347
2.6
2,453
2.0
-
-
2,534
19.0
24,112
19.6
-
23.9
Cocaine powder
681
5.1
9,362
7.6
-
Crack cocaine
104
0.8
5,517
4.5
-
Opiates
7,945
59.5
74,815
60.8
-
50.6
Total
14,969
3.2
127,893
460,693
100
Cannabis
18.2
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Drug-related infectious diseases
• Report on prevalence of HIV, HCV and HBc from
surveys of injecting drug users
EUROPE –
• Also report notifications data
HCV
• Behavioural data
prevalence
ranges
from 22%
to 83%
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Drug-related deaths
Wales – 43.6
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Supply indicators
•
•
•
•
•
Drug offences data
Drug seizures data
Price data
Purity data
Composition of illicit tablets
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UK Focal Point outputs
Statistical tables
Annual Report on the
UK drug situation
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ANNUAL REPORT ON THE UK
DRUG SITUATION
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Annual Report chapters
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Drug policy: legislation, strategies and economic analysis
Drug use in the general population and specific groups
Prevention
Problem drug use
Drug-related treatment: treatment demand and treatment
availability
6) Health correlates and consequences
7) Responses to health correlates and consequences
8) Social correlates and consequences
9) Drug-related crime, prevention of drug-related crime and prison
10) Drug markets
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Other data and information
• Drug-related government expenditure
• All govt. depts., devolved administrations
• Hospital statistics
• Responsible health organisation. UK figure
• Needle and syringe exchange data
• Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Rates of reoffending and community sentence
completions
• Published data and administrative data from MoJ
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Other data and information
• Sentencing statistics
• Published data, extra analysis by primary drug
• Results from published studies
• Summaries of government, charity and academic reports
• Summaries of UK drug-related journal articles
• Peer reviewed journals, summaries including study
methodology and findings
Register of research – available on UK Focal Point website
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Selected issue chapters
Drug users with children
History, methods and
implementation of
national drug treatment
guidelines
Mortality related to drug
use
Treatment and care of
older drug users
Costs of drug-related
treatment
Drug-related health
policies and services in
prison
Residential treatment for
drug users
Trends in injecting drug
use
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HOW ARE THE DATA AND
INFORMATION USED BY THE
EMCDDA?
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EMCDDA’s Annual Report and Statistical Bulletin
Annual Report
Statistical Bulletin
Selected Issues
www.emcdda.europa.eu
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European Database on Demand Reduction Activities
(EDDRA)
Searchable database of
evaluated interventions
Quality of the evaluation
is graded
UK adds entries annually
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European Database on Demand Reduction Activities
(EDDRA)
Evaluation of All
Wales School
Liaison
programme
Evaluation of the
take-home
naloxone pilot in
Wales
Blueprint
evaluation
Evaluation of
Option 2
Evaluation of
Positive Futures
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Early Warning System
Forensic
agencies
Hospital
toxicologists
Special
mortality
registers
Law
enforcement
UK Early Warning System
EMCDDA’s Early Warning System
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HOW IS THE DATA AND
INFORMATION USEFUL?
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INFORMATION FOR ACTION
• One-stop shop for drug-related information
• Health, social care and criminal justice
• Unique UK perspective
• Allows comparisons between constituent countries
• Information on best practice when designing
interventions
• EDDRA, research summaries within Annual Report
• Provide link to Europe
• Request information from other EU countries
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DATA SOURCES
First point of call when looking for UK drugs data
and information
2012 Information Map Project – create a
resource mapping all sources of UK drugs data
and make this publicly available
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CONTACTS
WWW.UKFOCALPOINT.ORG.UK
charlotte.davies@dh.gsi.gov.uk
TO JOIN OUR MAILING LIST FOR UK FOCAL POINT AND EMCDDA
PRODUCTS, PLEASE SIGN UP ON OUR STAND OR EMAIL:
ukfocalpoint@dh.gsi.gov.uk
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