Think-tank claims UK is Europe’s ‘addiction capital’
Britain is a major centre for “legal highs” and has some of the highest addiction rates in Europe, according to the Centre for Social Justice.
In a new report called No Quick Fix, the think-tank says the UK has Europe’s highest rate of addiction to opiates like heroin, and the highest lifetime-use of amphetamines, cocaine and ecstasy.
The CSJ say’s the government’s efforts to tackle heroin addiction are “inadequate” and more than 40,000 drug addicts in England have been stranded on the substitute methadone.
A third of people in England on prescriptions such as methadone had been on them for four or more years, according to the research.
The reports highlights the availability of class A drugs like heroin and crack cocaine on mail order websites.
Drug users are also ordering legal drugs like Salvia online and more young people have used “legal highs” in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, representing a quarter of the European total, according to the CSJ.
The CSJ found that one in 12 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 in the UK – more than 670,000 – said they have taken “new psychoactive substances”.
In England 6,486 people were treated in 2011/12 for abusing these types of drugs, an increase of 39 per cent since 2005/06.
The think-tank criticised the government’s response to the ever-expanding range of legal highs, saying it had only used temporary banning orders three times to control approximately 15 substances since 2010, and more than 150 new substances have gone on sale since then.
The report also highlighted the spiralling rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England, which it says have doubled in a decade, and warns that Britain is facing “an epidemic of drink-related conditions”.
The CSJ found alcohol dependence among British men is second in western Europe while alcohol dependence among women is higher in Britain than anywhere in Europe.
One in four adults in England drink to harmful levels, and one in 20 are “dependent drinkers”, the report claims.
Alcohol-related deaths have doubled since 1991 across the UK, and liver disease is now one of the “big five” killers, alongside heart and lung disease, cancer and strokes.
The research highlights a North/South divide in the problem of alcohol abuse, with 26 of the 30 local authorities with the highest rate of alcohol-related admissions in the North of England.
The think-tank criticises the government’s failure to tackle cheap alcohol through minimum unit pricing.
The CSJ puts the cost of alcohol and drug abuse to the UK at £21 billion and £15 billion respectively.
Christian Guy, director of the CSJ, said: “While our addiction problem damages the economy, it is the human consequences that present the real tragedy.
“Drug and alcohol abuse fuels poverty and deprivation, leading to family breakdown and child neglect, homelessness, crime, debt and long-term worklessness.
“From its impact on children to its consequences for pensioners, dependency destroys lives, wrecks families and blights communities.”
Home Affairs Select Committee chair Keith Vaz said: “Today’s report by the Centre for Social Justice on legal highs and the figures for the numbers of deaths linked to legal highs is truly shocking.
“The current system of temporary banning orders simply cannot keep up with the market in new psychoactive substances.”