Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Mephedrone
According to Home Office figures, mephedrone remains as popular as ecstasy among young people, but the 3.3% figure for 16- to 24-year-olds using it in the past year still represents a decline. Photograph: Rex Features
According to Home Office figures, mephedrone remains as popular as ecstasy among young people, but the 3.3% figure for 16- to 24-year-olds using it in the past year still represents a decline. Photograph: Rex Features

Illicit drugs 'going out of fashion'

This article is more than 11 years old
Latest Home Office figures record a decline in illicit drug use in England and Wales, including of mephedrone and Spice

Illicit drug use in England and Wales is firmly on a downward curve, with the latest annual Home Office figures confirming the long-term trend that they might simply be "going out of fashion".

Figures published on Thursday even record a decline in recently banned so-called "legal highs" such as mephedrone and Spice (synthetic cannabis).

The 2010-11 Home Office statistics – which show that an estimated 3 million people, or about 9% of the population aged 16 to 59, have taken an illicit drug in the past year – have stabilised at the lowest level since the survey began in 1996.

The annual crime survey for England and Wales discloses that cannabis remains the most popular drug, with about 2.3 million people using it in the past year, followed by powder cocaine at 700,000, ecstasy at 500,000 and amphetamines at 300,000.

They also show a stable low-level use of heroin at 0.1% of the population although use of the heroin substitute methadone has doubled over the past two years, from 0.1% to 0.2%.

Younger people aged 16 to 24 show a similar pattern, with 19% saying they had used an illicit drug in the past year – again the lowest level since the survey began in 1996.

For this age group cannabis use has fallen sharply from 26% in 1996 to 15.7% last year, followed by a drop in powder cocaine use from 5.5% at its peak in 2009-10 to 4.2% last year. Despite the current media focus on ecstasy, its use among young people has also experienced a recent decline, down from 4.4% in 2008-09 to 3.3% in the latest figures.

Even mephedrone and Spice, which enjoyed a brief period of popularity before being banned, are no longer the fashionable drugs they once were. Mephedrone remains as popular as ecstasy among young people, with 3.3% of 16- to- 24-year-olds using it in the past year, but this is a decline since last year's survey showed 4.4% trying it.

Illicit drug use
Illicit drug use Photograph: Graphic

Harry Shapiro, editor of Druglink magazine, said that for the first time since drugs became a political issue in the 1960s most ways of measuring suggested that drug use was now on a firm downward curve.

In this month's issue, published on Thursday by Drugscope, an independent centre of drugs experts, he says the substantial increase in drug treatment, the economic between 2000-08, and the relative strength of modern day cannabis may all be factors.

"More generally, drug use having become more normalised in society, might then be just as prey to fashion as any other cultural artefact. Drugs don't appear to be 'cool' these days as they once were," writes Shapiro.

He acknowledges that it is still a significant issue, with 300,000 serious problem drug users and rising youth unemployment, but "to suggest, as some do, that we are currently going to a drug hell in a handcart is just a wilful refusal to acknowledge the facts". Shapiro is particularly critical of politicians who repeatedly claim that drug use is spiralling out of control for their own purposes.

The Home Office figures also show that the most commonly reported age for first taking cannabis is 16, with people first trying cocaine and ecstasy at 18. Most have stopped using cannabis by the time they are 18, and cocaine or ecstasy by 25. A very small minority continue to use cannabis throughout their lives, with some reporting they were still using the drug at 59.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial – the highs and lows

  • MDMA may help treat depression and PTSD, Channel 4 study suggests

  • Can MDMA help to cure depression?

Comments (…)

Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion

Most viewed

Most viewed