And it also costs Britain more than 4bn each year in crime, sickness and absenteeism. In the next two years, we are going to see a further increase. Clearly this is bad news for someone like me in this job. As well as a third of all recorded property crime being linked to drugs, in some areas a quarter of all offenders arrested by police have tested positive for heroin, with one in 10 being on cocaine or crack. Drug abuse also places a huge burden on the welfare state and is intrinsically linked to social problems such as homelessness.
Recent studies show that more than half of all the homeless population use drugs regularly.
The drugs tsar himself privately favouring depenalisation - whereby offenders would face only a fine and not a prison sentence. Just this month, a key government advisor, the Labour peer Lord Haskins, said cannabis should be legalised and harder drugs made more readily available on prescription as part of medical programmes to treat addicts. But government policy remains intrangible, with the home secretary, Jack Straw, taking a tough line on illegal substances, and refusing to countenance any relaxation of the laws governing hard drugs. He is also opposed to the decriminalisation of cannabis - let alone its legalisation. A drugs such as cocaine and heroin.