(2) how many grammes of illegal drugs were detected by (a) police officers and (b) police dogs in each of the last 10 years; and what percentage of the total drug seizures for each year each of those figures constituted.
Latest drug seizures data for England and Wales relate to the calendar year 2004 and are published on the Home Office RDS website. The requested data for each year between 1995 and 2004, broken down by police force area, are provided in the tables. Copies will be placed in the Library of the House.
Information about how, and by whom, drugs are detected is not collected centrally.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts, police forces and other agencies. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.