Drug use is unacceptable in the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence has a policy of Compulsory Drug Testing which seeks to reinforce that message. Providing a positive result, indicating the presence of illegal drugs, will almost certainly result in an administrative discharge. Positive rates in the Armed Forces over the last few years average less than 0.5%, which is significantly lower than the latest British Crime survey (2013/14) which reports one in 11 (8.8%) of adults aged 16 to 59 have taken an illegal drug in the last year.

The following tables provide information on the number of convictions in the Military Court Service in each requested year. Numbers provided for the category of ‘possession’ include convictions by a Commanding Officer at a Summary Hearing; offences relating to the supply of illegal drugs cannot be dealt with at Summary Hearing level.

Convictions for possession of drugs

Convictions for supplying illegal drugs

‘-’ Five or less. Note: Figures have been rounded to 10. There were no relevant convictions in either category among Royal Marines personnel and also no convictions for supplying illegal drugs among Navy and RAF personnel.

The provision of veterans' healthcare, including mental health and alcohol related issues, is primarily the responsibility of the National Health Service in England and the Devolved Administrations. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has not made an estimate of the number of veterans receiving such support.

The Government has made great progress with improving the services provided to meet veterans' mental health needs, including the implementation of all of the recommendations in my hon. Friend, the Member for South West Wiltshire, Dr Andrew Murrison's 'Fighting Fit' report.

These measures include: an increase in the number of mental healthcare professionals; a dedicated 24-hour helpline in partnership with Combat Stress; an on-line mental health support and advice website provided by the Big White Wall; structured mental health assessment as part of routine and discharge medicals; and the Veterans Information Service, who contact recent Service leavers to make them aware of mental health and other support available in the community. Veterans are entitled to priority access to healthcare for conditions suspected to be due to their service in the Armed Forces (subject to the clinical needs of others).

The MOD has a wide range of measures in place to discourage alcohol misuse in the Armed Forces, including education, training and treatment. Sensible, moderate consumption of alcohol can play an important part in the military culture, but the benefits must always be balanced against the hazards of misuse.

The following table contains the sum of the. estimated alcohol-related admissions, using attributable fractions, for York teaching hospital NHS foundation trust, North Yorkshire and York primary care trust (PCT) of treatment and England for the years 2008-09 to 2011-12.

Alcohol attributable fractions do not provide a count of episodes with an alcohol-related diagnosis or cause code but rather an estimate of the numbers based on the proportion of diseases and injuries that can be wholly or partially attributed to alcohol.

The attributable fractions are not applicable to children under 16. Therefore figures for this age group relate only to wholly attributable admissions, where the attributable fraction is one.

It should be noted that these data should not be described as a count of people as the same person may have been admitted on more than one occasion.

The most recent estimate for the number of children living with parents who are in drug treatment was published by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse in 2012. Their report on parental drug misuse ‘Parents with drug problems: how treatment helps families’ estimated that there were 104,000 children living with parents who were in drug treatment during 2011-12.

A copy of the report has been placed in the Library.

Information on spending on alcohol and drug treatment in Harlow is not collected centrally.

The treatment of drug dependence among residents of Harlow in the period 2005-06 to 2012-13 was supported by money allocated by the Department to Essex primary care trust through the Adult Pooled Treatment Budget. The allocations covering Essex in this period are shown in the following table:

From April 2013, alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery activity are funded from a ring-fenced grant allocated to local authorities to fund all of their public health responsibilities.

In 2013-14, Essex's public health grant allocation is £48.9 million.

Each local authority is free to determine their actual spend on alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery based on an assessment of need. They will be required to report their spending in these areas on an annual basis.

Information on spending on alcohol and drug treatment in Harlow is not collected centrally.

The treatment of drug dependence among residents of Harlow in the period 2005-06 to 2012-13 was supported by money allocated by the Department to Essex primary care trust through the Adult Pooled Treatment Budget. The allocations covering Essex in this period are shown in the following table:

From April 2013, alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery activity are funded from a ring-fenced grant allocated to local authorities to fund all of their public health responsibilities.

In 2013-14, Essex's public health grant allocation is £48.9 million.

Each local authority is free to determine their actual spend on alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery based on an assessment of need. They will be required to report their spending in these areas on an annual basis.

The information which is collected centrally about hospital admissions does not separately identify newer substances such as legal highs or identify whether a drug has been taken legally or illegally. For example, the information collected on opiate related admissions does not distinguish between opiates that have been prescribed for a medical reason and opiates taken to get 'high'.

The information which is collected centrally about hospital admissions does not separately identify newer substances such as legal highs or identify whether a drug has been taken legally or illegally. For example, the information collected on opiate related admissions does not distinguish between opiates that have been prescribed for a medical reason and opiates taken to get 'high'.

Figures on the number of people receiving prescribed opioid substitute treatment with methadone and the cost of their treatment in Harlow are not collected centrally.

Data on the number of hospital admissions are collected by finished admission episodes rather than by number of people. Data on the number of finished

admission episodes to hospital with a primary diagnosis are associated with cocaine use for each year since 2006- 07 are given in the following table. It is important to note that finished admission episodes do not represent the number of inpatients, as a person may have more than one admission within the year

An internal departmental analysis of the costs of alcohol-related hospital admissions estimated that the national health service spent £1.8 billion on alcohol-related hospital admissions in 2009-10.

As this was bespoke piece of work, the figures for 2010-13 are not available.

Figures on actual national health service and local authority spending on drug and alcohol treatment and prevention between 2010-11 and 2012-13 and year-to-date spend on these services in 2013-14 are not collected centrally.

The Department allocated funds, via the pooled treatment budget, to support local areas for drug treatment until March 2013. This information has been placed in the Library. In 2012-13 an additional £32 million was provided via the drug interventions programme.

From April 2013, alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery activity are funded from a ring-fenced grant intended to fund all local authorities' public health responsibilities.

In 2013-14, this grant totals £2.7 billion. A table showing the breakdown of the public health grant to each local authority in England has also been placed in the Library. Each local authority is free to determine their actual spend on alcohol and drug prevention, treatment and recovery based on an assessment of need. They will be required to report their spending in these areas on an annual basis.

Data on ketamine-related hospital admissions is not collected centrally. This is because the International Classification of Diseases, used to collect data on hospital admissions, does not separately identify drug poisoning by ketamine.

The United Kingdom is compliant with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and is committed to protecting young people from the harms caused by drugs. The FRANK service is an important element of our work to educate young people about drugs. Regular evaluation of the FRANK service, including

the website, is undertaken to ensure that the content is correct, up-to-date and provides a valuable resource to those who use it.

The following table contains the sum of the estimated alcohol-related admissions, using attributable fractions for those aged under 18 years by socio-economic group and by gender for the years 2009-10 to 2011-12 and April 2012 to February 2013. It should be noted that data from April 2012 are provisional.

Alcohol attributable fractions do not provide a count of episodes with an alcohol related diagnosis or cause code but rather an estimate of the numbers based on the proportion of diseases and injuries that can be wholly or partially attributed to alcohol.

The attributable fractions are not applicable to children under 16. Therefore figures for this age group relate only to wholly-attributable admissions, where the attributable fraction is one.

It should be noted that these data should not be described as a count of people as the same person may have been admitted on more than one occasion.

The following table contains the sum of the estimated alcohol-related admissions, using attributable fractions for those aged under 18 years old resident in England.

It should be noted that these figures are not a count of people and represent an estimated number of admissions that were attributable to alcohol.

Alcohol attributable fractions (AAFs) are based on the proportion of a given diagnosis or injury that is estimated to be attributed to alcohol. Some diagnoses or injuries will, by definition, be wholly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF of one, others will only be partly attributable to alcohol and have an AAF greater than zero, but less than one. Diagnoses or injuries that are not attributable at all to alcohol will have an AAF of zero.

These figures are derived by summing all AAFs for the relevant admissions and should therefore only be interpreted as an estimate of the number of admissions that can be attributed to alcohol.

Services to treat dependence are commissioned locally. Information about whether dedicated or integrated services are commissioned is not collected centrally. Clinicians treating addiction to medicine are

expected to follow the “UK guidelines on clinical management of drug misuse and dependence” and other relevant guidance.

Drug free goals are the norm for this form of treatment. Local areas should assess clinical guidelines and develop local protocols for clinicians in that area to help them reduce doses safely and comfortably for each individual patient.

The information which is collected centrally about hospital admissions for drug poisoning does not separately identify newer substances such as legal highs. In “Statistics on Drug Misuse England, 2012” published on 29 November, the Health and Social Care Information Centre highlighted a consultation on whether additional codes should be included in collecting statistics on hospital admissions for drug poisoning.

The FRANK drug information campaign provides young people and their families with advice and information about all drugs, including ‘legal highs’. The campaign is managed jointly by the Department of Health and the Home Office. We continually review the FRANK service to ensure that it provides effective and up to date information.

The Home Office funds advertising to raise awareness of the FRANK service. The Department has funded and managed the FRANK service which comprises the helpline, email, SMS, live chat and website and on 1 April this responsibility passed to Public Health England.

In 2012-13 the Department spent £0.9 million on the FRANK service. It is not possible to isolate the costs of providing information about legal highs. However in 2012, the Department launched a targeted campaign costing £21,000 to encourage parents to talk to their children about legal highs.

The FRANK drug information campaign provides young people and their families with advice and information about all drugs, including ‘legal highs’. The campaign is managed jointly by the Department of Health and the Home Office. We continually review the FRANK service to ensure that it provides effective and up to date information.

The Home Office funds advertising to raise awareness of the FRANK service. The Department has funded and managed the FRANK service which comprises the helpline, email, SMS, live chat and website and on 1 April this responsibility passed to Public Health England.

In 2012-13 the Department spent £0.9 million on the FRANK service. It is not possible to isolate the costs of providing information about legal highs. However in 2012, the Department launched a targeted campaign costing £21,000 to encourage parents to talk to their children about legal highs.