Record 1.3m Britons are taking hard drugs

A RECoRD 1.3million people took hard drugs last year as the use of cocaine and ecstasy continued to rise, official figures revealed yesterday.

Some 3.7 per cent of Britons aged 16 to 59 reported taking Class A drugs over the course of 2018/19 – up from 3.5 per cent the year before and the highest rate since figures were first estimated in 1996.

Increasing rates of cocaine use and a revival of ecstasy led 550,000 of those aged 16 to 24 – 8.7 per cent or one in 12 – to take at least one Class A drug in 2018/19.

It was the highest level since the 8.9 per cent recorded in 2003, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

The findings undermine hopes that a ‘ Facebook generation’ of healthy-living young people has rejected the destructive behaviour of their predecessors.

The survey found an ‘ upward trend apparent in the use of Class A drugs, particularly among 16 to 24-year- olds’. It added: ‘ This is mainly driven by an increase in powder cocaine and ecstasy use.’

Cocaine was the second most commonly used drug in the last year after Class B cannabis. It was taken at some point by an estimated 976,000 people. The survey also found that drug use overall increased slightly. one in 11 adults aged 16 to 59 took an illicit drug over the year – 3.2million people.

A spokesman for the Home office said: ‘While overall levels of drug misuse are similar to a decade ago, the Government is concerned about the upward trend in more recent years.

‘We are committed to reducing the use of drugs and the harms they cause and the Home office has commissioned a major independent review.’