Scale of opiate and alcohol misuse across Birmingham revealed
Huge drug crisis linked to poverty
MORE than 10,000 addicts in Birmingham use opiate drugs like heroin and crack, health bosses have revealed.
The disturbing figures also show that more than 100,000 people in the city drink above recommended alcohol limits.
Both figures are linked to the Second City’s high levels of deprivation, it is claimed.
The scale of Birmingham’s substance misuse crisis was laid bare before the city council’s health and wellbeing committee this week.
The city has about13,300 people who are alcohol-dependent but more than seven times that figure consume above the levels recommended by doctors – 21 units per week for men and 14 units for women.
Nearly 3,000 people who are alcohol-dependent are living with children while there are around 373 drink-related deaths per year. About 1,400 people are currently in treatment.
The data, sourced by Public Health England, also revealed that about 10,500 people in the city are using opiates, 3,400 of whom are living with children.
Approximately 4,700 users are currently in treatment while there are about 173 drug-related deaths every year.
Max Vaughan, the council’s commissioning manager for substance misuse, said there was a “strong correlation” between deprivation and drug or alcohol abuse.
About 40 per cent of Birmingham’s population reside in areas ranked among the most deprived in the entire country.
“You can map them almost directly,” said Mr Vaughan.
Figures from Change Grow Live, which delivers adult support services in the city, showed that most people who are receiving treatment or recovering for opiate use are from the Perry Barr and Ladywood constituencies. Sutton Coldfield and Erdington are the most prevalent for alcoholism.
Mr Vaughan said the number of adults in treatment had reduced in recent years in line with funding cuts which have resulted in the adult support service budget shrinking from £27 million to £15 million in five years.
However, he said the city was performing well when it came to successful case completion rates compared to other large cities.
Talking around some of the key issues Mr Vaughan said: “We have an ageing opiate population. Young people aren’t choosing to use heroin which is a very good thing.
“But those in treatment are getting older, their health is deteriorating, their call on health and social services has increased.
“It’s fair to say that out of the £15 million we spend on adult drug services, they consume quite a bit of that resource and capacity.”
Mr Vaughan also pointed to synthetic cannabis and the various other issues people may be dealing with, such as criminality, homelessness, domestic abuse, unemployment and prison release.
Ben Howells, from Aquarius, which provides substance misuse treatment for under-18s, said that 90 per cent of people referred for taking cannabis were taking “new cannabis”.
“It’s not the old strength, it’s far more harmful now, it’s far more factory-produced and often it includes lots of stuff that isn’t cannabis and has a much quicker effect,” he said.
Mr Howells also confirmed that the service was seeing an increase in referrals for former legal highs such as black mamba and exodus damnation, but “not the explosion that was predicted a few years ago”.