Drug use costs society a total of £19 billion a year, a new report has found.
A review by Dame Carol Black found the health harms, costs of crime and impacts on wider society to be more than double that of the drugs market itself – estimated to be worth £9.4bn a year in England and Wales.
That's greater than the UK revenue of Aldi (£8.7 billion in 2016/17), Boots (£6.9 billion in 2016/17) and EasyJet (£5.0 billion in 2016/17).
The report, which was released to coincide with a drugs summit held by the UK Government in Glasgow today. It follows a similar conference held by the Scottish Government yesterday.
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Police and crime minister Kit Malthouse, who will chair the Glasgow summit, said: "The findings, which we will discuss today, are troubling and paint a stark picture of how illegal drugs are devastating lives and communities, and fuelling serious violence."
Dame Carol's report also found interventions by the UK Government to quell the supply of drugs "have had limited success".
The report found that the key agencies involved – the Border Force and National Crime Agency – have faced budgetary issues in recent years, however, Dame Carol was unsure if extra resources would have been enough to stem the problem.
Supply of the most serious drugs – heroin and crack cocaine – has been overtaken by the "county lines" model, which sees gangs and distribution networks from cities move into smaller towns and use violence to overtake local dealers while using children or vulnerable people to sell their product.
The report also found up to one-third of people in UK prisons are there for a drug-related crime – most of which are acquisitive offences.
Support in jail and for those leaving was deemed to be insufficient by Dame Carol, with those released "very likely to re-offend".
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