No Evidence for Claims of Explosion of Cannabis Use

Media claims of an explosion of cannabis use following reclassification in January 2004 have pressured Home Secretary Charles Clarke to call for a review of policy from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

However new figures released today (March 2005) by the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, based on a 10 year study involving over 16000 cannabis users, finds key indicators of cannabis use to show no evidence of any such increase.

Indeed, preliminary findings from the 2004 IDMU survey recorded the lowest year on year increase in regular cannabis use in the past decade, with user ratings (a key indicator of intention to use) remaining at a historic low. The average age of initiation to cannabis use was close to the 10 year average, and cannabis resin prices had bottomed out after years of steady decline.
Matthew Atha – IDMU Director, stated today “Far from leading to an explosion of use, declassification of cannabis appears to have had little or no effect on consumption or levels of cannabis usage, if anything the upward trend in cannabis use appears to have been halted.”

Year	Regular Users	% Increase	Age 1st Use	User Rating	1/8oz resin
1994	961073	n/a	15.98	8.8	£14.41
1995	1005198	4.6%	15.92	8.5	£14.39
1996-7	1209383	20.3%	15.90	8.8	£14.06
1998	1753261	45.0%	16.29	8.4	£13.64
1999	2175048	24.1%	15.82	8.3	£12.88
2000	2516565	15.7%	15.75	8.4	£12.01
2001	3106950	23.5%	15.59	8.6	£11.29
2002	3273777	5.4%	16.29	7.7	£10.74
2003	3350801	2.4%	16.76	7.6	£9.96
2004	3366795	0.5%	15.93	7.6	£9.93

Notes to Editors: The figure for regular cannabis users is derived from the average number of times an respondents have been ‘busted’ for cannabis, their duration of use, the number of cannabis arrests over the average duration of use (derived from Home Office statistics), and the proportion of regular cannabis users in each year’s survey.

IDMU distributes anonymous questionnaires at Pop Festivals and other outdoor events around the UK. The 2004 results are based on the preliminary dataset of 2056 respondents. The 2005 survey can also be found by clicking here. For further Information contact Matthew Atha