One of the aims of the national drug strategy 'Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain' (6) is to reduce the availability of illegal drugs on the streets. One way of reducing availability is to increase seizures. The national drug strategy also aims for an increase in the number of offenders dealt with for supplying illegal drugs. The Home Office collects and presents data on seizures of controlled drugs and persons dealt with for offences involving controlled drugs (7).

Table B1 lists the drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Seizure figures for the UK include drugs seized by the Police Service and by Customs and Excise. Data for areas within the UK include drugs seized by the Police Service only.

The term 'offender' is defined as 'an individual who has come to the attention of the Police or Customs and as a result has been cautioned by the Police, appeared in court or dealt with in some other way (7). The offenders include those found guilty, cautioned or given a fiscal fine.

Date	Title	Format	View
8 Feb 2004	Drug Seizure and Offender Statistics, London, 2000

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• In London there were more than 25,000 seizures of illegal drugs by the Police Services in 2000; 7,415 involved seizures of Class A drugs including cocaine, crack, heroin and ecstasy.
• Seizures of Class A drugs in London accounted for nearly 30% of all Class A seizures in England.
• The rate of seizures of Class A drugs in London (1 per thousand population) was double the rate of seizures of Class A drugs in England as a whole (0.5 per thousand). The higher rate is largely due to increased seizures of cocaine and crack.
• The average quantities per seizure were similar in England and London with the exception of heroin. In London the average quantity of heroin seized was 100 grams whereas in England it was only 40 grams.
• There were a total of 20,688 persons found guilty, cautioned or given a fiscal fine in London last year, compared to 90,024 in England. Therefore, London accounted for 23% of all drug offenders. 16,007 (78%) offences in London involved cannabis. Much fewer offences involved cocaine (1,644), crack (663) and heroin (1,406).
• The proportion of offences that took place in London varied substantially by drug type. 55% of all crack offences took place in London compared to 39% of all cocaine offences, 13% of heroin offences, 15% of ecstasy offences and 25% of cannabis offences.
• Approximately half of all offenders in London were cautioned and of those found guilty in London approximately half were given a fine.

We hope to extend the information and analysis presented in this section to include further types of drug related crime. Research carried out by the Home Office suggests that there are strong associations between drug use and other types of crime, particularly acquisitive crime e.g. burglary, shoplifting (7). In addition national estimates of the age and sex profile of the offenders are available and we will aim to present these for London in the future, if possible.

The Metropolitan Police Service releases the number of drug offences (drug trafficking, possession and other offences) by local authority on its website. These data will be explored further.

It is likely that the probability of arrest for possession of a drug is low compared to the size of the drug using population in London. It is important, therefore, to develop and use other data sets relating drug use to offending such as Arrest Referral and other information which will be explored next year, such as the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring system, and reports from probation and prison.

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