Mapping our drug preferences

We know that different parts of the countries have different cultures and preferences for drinks and food. Everyone knows to associate the West Country with cider, Devon with cream teas and baltis with Birmingham.

But do our different regions have drug preferences?

Apparently they do.

The Independent did their own analysis of the data in the recent Crime Survey and compared the prevalence of reported use of the five drugs featured in the CSEW release: amphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy, hallucinogens and powder cocaine.

They compared each region’s prevalence of 16-59 year olds reporting use in the past year to the average for England and Wales, in order to find the drug most used more than average in that particular region.

Here’s their map of the findings:

London has 196 per cent more people reporting use of ecstasy in the past year (2.943 per cent) than the average for England and Wales, making it the capital’s drug of choice compared to national rates.

Both the West and East midlands and the east of England returned prevalence below the national average across the whole range of drugs surveyed.

The drug most frequently used across England and Wales was cannabis (6.473 per cent), while the least used were hallucinogens (0.498 per cent).