Online report 21/07 National and Regional Estimates of the Prevalence of Opiate Use and/or Crack Cocaine Use 2005/06: a summary of key findings

This report summarises the results of the second 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 2005/06 there were an estimated 332,090 problem drug users in England; this corresponds to 9.97 per thousand of the population aged 15-64. These figures show that the level of problem drug use is stable compared to 2004/05 (327,466 or 9.93 per 1000 population). The difference is not statistically significant at the 95% level. There was a statistically significant reduction in the prevalence of drug injectors, falling from 4.16 per thousand in 2004/05 to 3.9 per thousand in 2005/06.

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