HC Deb 01 July 2003 vol 408 cc247-8W
Mr. Wiggin

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much illegal drugs were seized by the police during the latest 12 months for which figures are available; and what the cost was of such operations. [122013]

Caroline Flint

It is not possible to separate out the cost of seizing illegal drugs from police expenditure data available centrally.

Numbers of drug seizures and quantities seized by police in the United Kingdom during 2001 are shown in the table. The data are taken from Home Office Findings 202 "Seizures of drugs in the UK 2001". This is available on the RDS website, http:// www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r202.pdf, and in the Library.

Number of drug seizures and quantity seized by police in the United Kingdom during 2001, by class and drug type.
Drug class and type Number of seizures Quantity (kg)
Class A
Cocaine 5,470 1,024.5
Crack 3,645 33.7
Heroin 18,075 2,801.6
LSD 166 9.41
Ecstasy-type 10,322 2,349.61
Methadone 1,067 114.6
All Class A 36,083 -3
Class B
Amphetamines 6,725 1,089.7
Cannabis (herbal) 29,974 7,243.1
Cannabis plants 1,874 71,491.2
Cannabis resin 62,873 22,518.3
All Class B 95,471 -3
Class C
Benzodiazepines (exc.Temazepan) 1,664 10.2
Temazepan 443 1.1
Anabolic steroids 93 1.3
All Class C 2,180 -3
Total seizures 125,912 -3

Notes:

1. Thousands of doses/tablets.

2. Number of plants.

3. It is not meaningful to calculate total drug weights, as measures other than kilograms are used for quantities of LSD, Ecstasy-type drugs and Cannabis plants (see notes 1,2).

Source:

Home Office Findings 202 Seizures of drugs in the UK 2001