§ Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many drug addicts there are in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. MellorThe numbers of narcotic drug addicts notified to the Home Office are published annually in a Home Office statistical bulletin "Statistics of the Misuse of Drugs in the United Kingdom". The latest issue 13/83, published on 5 July 1983, showed nearly 4,400 addicts recorded as receiving notifiable drugs in treatment of their addiction at 31 December 1982. The total number of addicts is unknown, but I understand that recent research suggests there may be about 20,000 opioid addicts in the United Kingdom, and a similar number misusing other controlled drugs.