§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his Department's estimate of the annual expenditure by users on drugs.
§ Mr. MacleanDrug misuse is an illegal and, therefore, clandestine activity. It is not possible to produce a reliable estimate of the amount spent annually on drugs by users.
§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his estimate of the changes in the consumption of(a) heroin, (b) cocaine and (c) cannabis since 1979.
§ Mr. MacleanReliable information on levels of consumption of the drugs mentioned is not available. Information on the percentage change in the number of recorded seizures of each drug over the period in question is given in the table.
573W
United Kingdom Number of seizures 1979 1992 percentage change Heroin 600 2,968 +395 Cocaine 348 2,365 +580 Cannabis 14,116 57,663 +308
§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many registered addicts are addicted to prescribed drugs in the United Kingdom;
(2) if he will list the 10 prescribed drugs to which the largest number of addicts are addicted in the United Kingdom and the totals of addicts.
§ Mr. MacleanInformation on the identity of the drugs, dependence on which requires medical practitioners to notify the Home Office, and the numbers of persons addicted to those drugs, is given in table 2 of the Home Office Statistical Bulletin "Statistics of drug addicts notified to the Home Office, United Kingdom, 1992"—issue 15/93—a copy of which is in the Library.
All these drugs are legitimately prescribed or administered on occasion, but the proprietary names of those drugs in the list, where they exist, are: methadone (Physeptone); dipipanone (Diconal); dextromoramide (Palfium); and phenazocine (Narphen). Methadone is the drug normally used to treat dependence on heroin.