Statistics
To begin my research i started to look into statistics of drug miss use in the UK to get a better understanding of how much of a problem drug use is. Here's what I found:
Drug misuse related hospital admissions (England)
- There were 7,545 hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of drug-related mental health and behavioral disorders. This is 12 per cent lower than 2015/16 but 12 per cent higher than 2006/07
- There were 14,053 hospital admissions with a primary diagnosis of poisoning by illicit drugs.This is 7 per cent lower than 2015/16 but 40 per cent more than 2006/07.
- In 2016 there were 2,593 registered deaths in England and Wales related to drug misuse. This is an increase of 5 per cent on 2015 and 58 per cent higher than 2006
- Deaths related to drug misuse are at their highest level since comparable records began in 1993
- In 2016/17, around 1 in 12 (8.5 per cent) adults aged 16 to 59 in England and Wales had taken an illicit drug in the last year.
- This level of drug use was similar to the 2015/16 survey (8.4 per cent), but is significantly lower than a decade ago (10.1 per cent in the 2006/07 survey).
- In 2016, 24 per cent of pupils reported they had ever taken drugs. This compares to 15 per cent in 2014.
- The likelihood of having ever taken drugs increased with age, from 11 per cent of 11 year olds to 37 per cent of 15 year olds.
