Drugs (Hansard, 4 February 2004)

§ Mrs. Gillan
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the number of people in England and Wales who take(a) heroin, (b) marijuana, (c) cocaine and (d) ecstasy. [150761]

§ Caroline Flint
The British Crime Survey (BCS) provides figures on use among adults aged 16 to 59 years of age in England and Wales. The 2002–03 BCS estimated that approximately 3.4 million adults had used marijuana, 640,000 had used cocaine and 610,000 had used ecstasy and 45,000 had used heroin in the previous 12 months.
Approximately one million people were estimated to have used class A drugs during the last year.
Estimated levels of drug use for those aged 16 to 59 years have remained the same since 2001–02.

§ Paul Flynn
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has to review the system of classifying illegal drugs. [152345]

§ Caroline Flint
The Government have no plans to review the system used to classify illegal drugs.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is a statutory and non-executive non-departmental public body, established by the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) 1971. It has a statutory duty to keep under review the situation in the United Kingdom with respect to the misuse of drugs and to advise Ministers of the measures which they consider should to be taken to deal with social problems which arise from drug misuse. Ministers may also ask the ACMD to consider 986W the appropriate classification and scheduling of any substance. In addition, the ACMD has a duty to consider any matter relating to drug dependence or misuse that may be referred to them by Ministers.