HC Deb 20 February 1990 vol 167 cc660-1W
Mr. Butler

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what research information is available to him relating to the elasticity of demand for cocaine and heroin from their users.

Mr. Mellor

Information on the elasticity of demand for class A controlled drugs is included in "Managing Drug Use", a report of a study by Whynes et al, financed by the Home Office, which was published in theBritish Journal of Addiction (BJA (1989) 84, 533–540). The same edition of the journal contains a summary of the report of Home Office research unit study No 95, "Economic Aspects of the Illicit Drug Market and Drug Enforcement Policies in the United Kingdom", by Wagstaff and Maynard (BJA (1989) 84, 461–475), much of which is also relevant. Copies of the Journal and the Home Office research unit study are in the Library.

Mr. Dykes

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he next expects to meet fellow European Economic Community interior Ministers to discuss further measures to control drug abuse.

Mr. Mellor

My right hon. and learned Friend and I expect to meet a number of interior Ministers at the world ministerial drugs summit, which will be held in London from 9–11 April.

Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what studies his Department has commissioned into why individuals take drugs.

Mr. Mellor

Although the Home Office has not commissioned specific studies on this aspect of the drugs problem, information on the factors which lead people to misuse drugs is available from research. In its report on prevention (published 1984), the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs discussed the main theories which had emerged from research about causation, and concluded that no single cause, or consistent pattern of multiple causes, had been identified.