Home Office Research Report 09 - National and regional estimates of the prevalence of opiate use and/or crack cocaine use 2006/07: a summary of key findings

This report summarises the results of the third and final sweep of a three-year study to estimate the prevalence of problematic use of opiates and/or crack cocaine nationally (England only), regionally, and locally. Innovative methods have been used to estimate this hard-to-reach population, namely the Capture-Recapture method, and the Multiple Indicator Method. These methods make use of data that is available at the local level, such as probation, crime and drug treatment data. The estimates are also disaggregated by drug type (opiate, crack and/or drug injecting), and by age and gender.

Overall, in 2006/07 there were an estimated 328,767 problem drug users in England; this corresponds to 9.76 per thousand in the population aged 15-64. These figures show that the estimate for the total number of problem drug users has remained stable across the three sweeps. Since the first sweep there has been a statistically significant reduction in the prevalence of drug injectors, which has fallen from 4.16 per thousand in 2004/05 to 3.47 per thousand in 2006/07.

The estimates are provided as a guidance to help with needs assessment and service planning at the local level.