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 surveysAdults (16-59/64) – household surveys usually crime surveys

Children (11-15) – school surveys

Lifetime; last year; last monthFrequency of use

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Problem drug use

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COUNTRY ESTIMATE RATE PER 1,000

England 306,150 8.93

Northern Ireland 1,395 1.28

Scotland 55,328 16.16

Wales 16,389 8.46

United Kingdom 379,262 9.31

EMCDDA definition: Injecting drug use or long-duration/regular use of opioids, cocaine and/or amphetamines

Problem drug use

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* Wales

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 - -

Cannabis 2,534 19.0 24,112 19.6 - 23.9

Cocaine powder 681 5.1 9,362 7.6 -18.2

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

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Drug-related infectious diseases• Report on prevalence of HIV, HCV and HBc from

surveys of injecting drug users• Also report notifications data• Behavioural data

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EUROPE – HCV prevalence ranges from 22% to 83%

Drug-related deaths

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Wales – 43.6

Supply indicators

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• Drug offences dataDrug offences data• Drug seizures dataDrug seizures data• Price dataPrice data• Purity dataPurity data• Composition of illicit tabletsComposition of illicit tablets

UK Focal Point outputs

Statistical tables

Annual Report on theUK drug situation

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ANNUAL REPORT ON THE UK DRUG SITUATION

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Annual Report chapters

1) Drug policy: legislation, strategies and economic analysis2)2) Drug use in the general population and specific groupsDrug use in the general population and specific groups3) Prevention4)4) Problem drug useProblem drug use5) Drug-related treatment: treatment demand and treatment

availability6)6) Health correlates and consequencesHealth correlates and consequences7) Responses to health correlates and consequences8)8) Social correlates and consequencesSocial correlates and consequences9) Drug-related crime, prevention of drug-related crime and prison10)10) Drug marketsDrug 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

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Drug users with childrenMortality related to drug

use

History, methods and implementation of

national drug treatment guidelines

Drug-related health policies and services in

prison

Costs of drug-related treatment

Treatment and care of older drug users

Residential treatment for drug users

Trends in injecting drug use

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 ofevaluated interventions

Quality of the evaluationis graded

UK adds entries annually

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European Database on Demand Reduction Activities (EDDRA)

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Evaluation of the take-home

naloxone pilot in Wales

Evaluation of All Wales School

Liaison programme

Evaluation of Option 2

Blueprint evaluation

Evaluation of Positive Futures

Early Warning System

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UK Early Warning System

Forensic agencies

Hospital toxicologists

Special mortality registers

Law enforcement

EMCDDA’s Early Warning System

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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