Members of public less concerned about drug dealing and drunkenness

This is the latest post in a monthly series reproducing Andrew Brown’s monthly slideshare of interesting new facts about alcohol and other drugs which he has unearthed from a wide range of reports.

Andrew works for MEAM/Making Every Adult Matter, the coalition of three national charities (Clinks, Homeless Link and Mind) who champion the cause of people experiencing multiple needs and who have been kind enough to allow Andrew’s monthly slideshares to be re-published here.

This month’s slides focus particularly on the latest stats from Public Health England on young people receiving specialist support for drug and alcohol problems.

Here are some of the things I learnt from Andrew’s round-up this month, including some hearteningly positive findings:

• Irish women have the highest estimated prevalence of drinking in pregnancy followed by Belarus, Denmark and the UK (slide 6)
• The proportion of respondents to the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales who identify drug use/dealing and drunkenness as a big problem in their communities has fallen over the last four years (slide 8)
• The number of offences for possession of cannabis has fallen by 42% in the last four years (slide 10)
• Police cells are used much less often for a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act – down 80% in last four years to 1,764 (slide 18)
• A significant proportion of young people who enter specialist treatment services for drug and/or alcohol use have multiple other problems (slide 36)

You can follow Andrew on Twitter @andrewbrown365