To ask the Secretary of State for Health what her most recent estimate is of the number of (a) cocaine and (b) heroin addicts in England. (107202)

We do not have estimates of numbers of heroin and cocaine addicts but recent Home Office research, using 2004-05 data, has provided estimates of numbers of people who are problematic users of opiates or crack cocaine or of both types of drugs.

There are no good estimates for problematic powder cocaine users. Crack cocaine users and opiate users are those included in the new estimates.

The estimated number of opiate users aged 15 to 64 in England (including heroin and methadone users) is 281, 320 (95 per cent. CI¹ 279,753 to 292,941).

The estimated number of crack cocaine users (not including powder cocaine users) is 192,999 (95 per cent. CI 188,138 to 210,763). However, it should be noted that this estimate will include crack cocaine users for whom crack cocaine is not necessarily their main drug of use.

Many of the opiate users and crack cocaine users are the same people and there are an estimated 327,466 (95 per cent. CI 325,945 to 343,424) people who use either opiates or crack cocaine or use both types of drugs.

¹ 95 per cent. confidence intervals show the range of values within which we can be 95 per cent. sure that the ‘true’ PDU estimate lies.