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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been arrested for possession of (a) cannabis, (b) ecstasy and (c) heroin in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [78961] Mr. Bob Ainsworth: Information collected centrally on arrests for notifiable offences does not separately identify individual offences. However, data provided in the table shows persons found guilty, cautioned, given a fiscal fine, or dealt with by compounding for possession of cannabis, ecstasy-type and heroin from 1996-2000. The figures cover the UK. The data are taken from the annual Home Office Statistical Bulletin, which is available on the RDS website (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/ hosb402.pdf), and copies are available in the Library. These figures are due to be updated in the spring of 2003. Table 1. Number of persons found guilty, cautioned, given a fiscal fine, or dealt with by compounding for unlawful possession of cannabis, ecstasy-type, heroin in the UK, 1996 to 2000 1 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Cannabis Ecstasy-type Heroin 1996 65,095 2,983 4,958 1997 79,085 3,149 7,231 1998 91,148 2,430 9,681 1999 82,129 3,456 10,326 2000 70,306 5,194 9,608 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 No court appearance data available for Northern Ireland 1998 to 2000. Note: Breakdown by drug type for Northern Ireland not available for 1996 to 2000. Source: Home Office Drug Seizure and Offender Statistics, United Kingdom, 2000(Supplementary Tables.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

78961; 392 c795W;392 c825-6W

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Arrests Cannabis Drugs Misuse Ecstasy Heroin

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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