§ Mr. S. C. Silkinasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he is able to give of the success of the Campaign on the Use and Restrictions of Barbiturates (CURB), particularly in relation to children and young people.
§ Mr. RaisonThe campaign was primarily intended to reduce the availability of barbiturate preparations to misusers of those substances by persuading doctors to curtail their prescribing of them and to warn the public of the dangers of depending on them for inducing sleep. It is impossible to assess the extent to which it was responsible for achieving a significant reduction in the prescribing of barbiturate preparations. Statistics show that the number of prescriptions for those substances has been falling since 1971 and 13W thus, by the time the campaign was initiated, in September 1976, a downward trend had already been established. None the less, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs which conceived the campaign felt that it had achieved its aim of alerting the medical profession to the dangers inherent in the excessive prescribing of barbiturates.
Statistics for the prescription of barbiturates between 1971 and 1978, the last year for which figures are available, are set out below. Information is not available as to how the reduced availability of barbiturates has affected different age groups.
Total No. of Prescriptions for barbiturates (Thousands) 1971 12,922 1972 11,601 1973 10,647 1974 9,542 1975 8,095 1976 6,802 1977 5,933 1978 5,099