The 3 main harms caused by drug use in the UK are

• Death
• Illness
• Crime

 

Death

The UK has the second-highest rate of drug-related death in Europe, at about 34 per million population aged 16 or over. (UKDPC)

Heroin has been found to be the single drug most associated with drug related deaths, while cannabis has not been cited in a single case.

 

Heath

One of the main concerns in injecting drug users is the ease with which infections like HIV can be passed on. However, the UK shows one of the lowest levels of HIV prevalence in Europe.

 

Crime

The "overwhelming" majority of drug dependents do not cause any harm to themselves or society, says the UK Drug Policy Commission. However, it also says that of the small percentage that do, the extent of damage is disproportional to their numbers.  

Director of Transform Danny Kushlick believes the government is too focused on punishing drug-addicted criminals and not enough on rehabilitating them. He said: "The only thing law enforcement and the Home Office is interested in is reduction of property crime."

Home Office statistics show that the UK's 327 000 problematic drug users commit up to 56% of the total number of crimes (i.e. 36 million a year). Drug motivated crimes cost the government 19 billion pounds a year, which accounts for a third of the cost of all crimes.

Section Commander for East Bournemouth Inspector Mark Kelly believes there is an 'economic-compulsive' link between crime and drug dependency i.e. drug addicts committing crimes to fund their habit. He said: "Drug addiction drives acquisitive crime." Statistics show that the most common crime is shop-lifting and the most common drug addicted criminals are heroin users.  

The SU Project believes that if health and social functioning harms are added to the cost of crime, problematic drug users are costing the government well over 25 billion pounds a year.