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Drugs: Cocaine

Answer

The Home Office is only responsible for the assessment of illegal use of cocaine in England and Wales; the Governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland are responsible for their own illicit drug use figures using the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey and Northern Ireland Crime Survey/Drug Prevalence Survey in Northern Ireland respectively. Within England and Wales, the British Crime Survey (BCS) is used to provide information on the prevalence and trends of illicit drug use among 16 to 59 year-olds. Figures in the attached table show prevalence of cocaine use (including crack cocaine and cocaine powder) between the 2001-02 and 2008-09 BCS. These figures show that there has been a statistically significant increase in cocaine use among 16 to 59 year- olds in this period (from 2 per cent to 3 per cent).

Proportion of 16 to 59 year-olds reporting use of drugs in the last year, 2001-02 to 2008-09 BCS
Percentages									BCS
	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2007-08 to 2008-09
									Statistically significant change ¹
Any cocaine	2.0	2.1	2.5	2.0	2.4	2.6	2.4	3.0	^
Cocaine powder	2.0	2.1	2.4	2.0	2.4	2.6	2.4	3.0	^
Crack cocaine	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.2	0.2	0.1	0.1
Unweighted base ²	19,973	23,357	24,197	28,206	29,631.	28,819	28,331	28,232

"1. A statistically significant increase at the 5 per cent. level is denoted by "^" while a statistically significant decrease at the 5 per cent. level is denoted by "v".""2. Base numbers relate to any drug use. Bases for other drug measures will be similar." "2. Base numbers relate to any drug use. Bases for other drug measures will be similar."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

4942; 713 c35-6WA

Session

2008-09

Subjects

Misuse Cocaine

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk