A recent study found that 62 per cent of people whose urine was tested in police stations had drugs in their bloodstream. About a a quarter of the users had taken heroin. The treatment orders will be extended nationwide in April 2000 at a cost of pounds 6 million. Hellawell bases his views on the New Treatment Outcome Research Study, which examined the behaviour of 1,000 drug addicts, among whom 700 had committed more than 70,000 crimes in three months. After treatment, their crimes halved.
Preliminary findings suggest that a third of all proceeds from theft go to buy drugs.
The Home Office estimates that cocaine, crack and heroin addicts each spend 200 a week on drugs. A third of all people arrested are drug dependent but only one in five received any treatement for drug misuse. A third of all people convicted of crime such as shoplifting teheft and burglary, are drug addicts. The National Plan, backed by 217m of money from the Comprehensive Spending Rewiew over the next three years sets out challenging targets for the next ten years' The bulk of this money will go into drug treatement.