TIME TO BREAK THIS CYCLE OF ADDICTION
ThE tragic, almost daily, examples of knife crime in the UK rightly concern and dismay the British public. Each headline of each stabbing speaks of forgotten communities, dysfunctional broken homes and broken lives.
Stopping this is rightly now a priority. Yet tragic as these events are, it is worth understanding that more than ten times this number died silently, without headlines, from drug misuse over the past year.
The scale of the addiction problem is deeply worrying. In 2018 we saw a 16 per cent increase in deaths through drug misuse over a single year, and it is believed there are almost half a million known problem gamblers.
Small surprise that Public health England’s estimate of the combined annual cost to society of alcohol and drug abuse, once adjusted for inflation,
is now conservatively put at £38billion for the whole UK. To put this in context, it is the size of the defence budget.
Whether through gambling, drugs or alcoholism, addiction courses through society. The elderly have been exposed to an increased risk of prescription opioid addiction and too many of the 55,000 children defined as problem gamblers are aged just 11 years old.
Worryingly, as the Centre for Social Justice’s Road to Recovery report shows, addiction entrenches disadvantage, deepening the woes of poorer families disproportionately. It locks people into a downward spiral – it is responsible for mental health issues, homelessness and domestic violence.
To continue to do nothing is to accept we have lost sight of a home Office promise to leave no one behind on the road to recovery. It is time to grasp this issue and we must see bold and ambitious reform, from the development of effective prevention strategies in schools to the establishment of universally accessible rehabilitation.
Breaking this cycle will come at a cost. however, the CSJ calculates the current failings place an enormous cost on society. Public health England estimates the UK could expect to see savings of £21 for every £1 spent on drug treatment and £26 for every £1 spent on alcohol treatment.
The Government has shown an eagerness to review and redress our approach to gang violence and knife crime. Yet it’s surely time to deal with the root causes by reducing the addiction that feeds the gangs and criminal activity.
It is the report’s recommendation that we create a strong central body with a national strategy. This will enable local decision makers to deliver and hold them to account, thus avoiding the deep disparity in service delivery. This body must deal with all addictions, including to alcohol and gambling.
Addiction now needs to be seen for the real and significant problem it is and we need to deal with it as a government priority, including better and more targeted investment. Only then will we bring this under control to the benefit of us all. We must act now.