Written question asked by Lord Lilley (Conservative) on Wednesday, 24 January 2001, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 29 January 2001. It was answered by Charles Clarke (Labour) on Monday, 29 January 2001 on behalf of the Home Office.

Home Office

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were (a) arrested and (b) imprisoned on charges related to cannabis in the (i) UK, (ii) Netherlands and (iii) USA in the last 12 months for which figures are available. - Inc fact that the requested information is not available centrally and ref to Home Office bulletin "Drug Seizure and Offender Statistics, United Kingdom, 1998", copy in Library.

Answer: Mr. Lilley: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were (a) arrested and (b) imprisoned on charges related to cannabis in the (i) UK, (ii) Netherlands and (iii) USA in the last 12 months for which figures are available. [147751] Mr. Charles Clarke: The requested information is not available centrally. Information is not collected centrally on arrests either for drug-related offences or for drug offences such as unlawful possession. Similarly, the number of people actually received into prison on such charges is not collected centrally. The closest information collected on this topic is the number of offenders given sentences of immediate custody by the courts. The latest figure available is for 1998--5,398. Further details are given in Table S2.28 of the Supplementary Tables volume of the Home Office bulletin "Drug Seizure and Offender Statistics, United Kingdom, 1998" a copy of which is in the Library. Comparable information relating to the Netherlands and the USA cannot be provided.

Secondary information