This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Seizures of class A drugs in England and Wales have risen 13%, including the largest quantity of cocaine since records began in 1973, Home Office data shows.

In the year to March 2019, police and Border Force officers picked up 9.65 tonnes of cocaine, a 189% rise on the previous year, when 3.34 tonnes were seized.

Seizures of crack by police forces increased by a fifth, to the highest number in a decade, while the quantity seized was up 73% in the year.

Officers also picked up 2.2m doses of ecstasy in 2018-19, in comparison with 0.7m the year before – the highest quantity since 2006-07.

Although since 2009 there has been a general downturn in seizures of all illicit drugs, last year there was a 12% rise compared with the previous year, with officers carrying out 153,135 seizures in total.

The staggering rise coincides with the increasing number of 16- to 24-year-olds taking class A drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy.

Official estimates for 2018-19 revealed that 8.7% of young adults in England and Wales had taken a class A drug in the past year – marking a 16-year high.

Drug-related deaths in England and Wales have also hit record levels. In August last year, the Office for National Statistics reported a 16% increase in deaths from drug poisoning in 2018, the highest annual leap since records began.

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Though LSD seizures were still significantly lower than in 2005, when 1.14m doses were seized by officers, last year also marked a revival for the hallucinogen.

In 2018-19, 54,070 doses of LSD were obtained, compared with just 3,352 the previous year.

While the most harmful narcotics experienced the biggest rise in seizures last year, cannabis – which is considered a class B drug in the UK – was involved in 71% of all seizures.

Cocaine, which was involved in 11% of all seizures, was the second most commonly seized drug and the most commonly seized class A drug.

Anabolic steroids – a class C drug that can only be legally bought from a pharmacist with a prescription – also had a dramatic rise. There was a 59% increase in the quantity seized between 2018-19 and the previous year, from 1.7m to 2.7m doses.

The Labour MP Jeff Smith, who is co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform, said: “These figures are little reason to celebrate. The illicit drugs market is resilient to the extent that a major bust is only likely to disrupt supply for a matter of hours.

“With UK drugs-related death figures the highest on record, the government’s approach to drugs policy is doing nothing to avert the public health crisis we face. The real priority should be to focus on education and to bring in harm-reduction measures that will save lives.”

The Home Office declined to comment on the statistics, saying only that the increase in cocaine seizures was largely driven by a rise in the quantity picked up by the Border Force, which seized 92% of all cocaine last year.

Several large-scale cocaine seizures were carried out by officers in 2018-19, including a haul with an estimated street value of £133m, which was found hidden on a Dutch-registered yacht off the coast of Cornwall.