Policy paper

From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives

A 10-year plan to cut crime and save lives by reducing the supply and demand for drugs and delivering a high-quality treatment and recovery system.

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Documents

From harm to hope: A 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives

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O niwed i obaith: cynllun cyffuriau 10 mlynedd i gwtogi ar droseddu ac achub bywydau

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email alternativeformats@homeoffice.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

This is a 10-year plan for real change, with an ambition to reduce overall use towards a historic 30-year low. Commitments are made across government to break drug supply chains while simultaneously reducing the demand for drugs by getting people suffering from addiction into treatment, and deterring recreational drug use.

This will help us to level up by stopping the cycle of crime driven by addiction, keeping violence out of neighbourhoods across the country and saving lives through reducing the number of drug related deaths and homicides. The plan is supported by record investment of nearly £900 million of dedicated funding over the Spending Review period, taking the total investment over 3 years to £3 billion.

The 10-year plan is also the formal, substantive response to the Independent Reviews of Drugs led by Dame Carol Black and accepts all of her key recommendations.

The plan sets out 3 core priorities: break drug supply chains, deliver a world-class treatment and recovery system, and achieve a shift in the demand for recreational drugs

This will be achieved by:

  • continuing to roll-up exploitative and violent county lines and strengthen our response across the drug supply chain, making the UK a significantly harder place for organised crime groups to operate
  • investing a further £780 million to rebuild drug treatment and recovery services, including for young people and offenders, with new commissioning standards to drive transparency and consistency
  • strengthening the evidence for how best to deter use of recreational drugs, ensuring adults change their behaviour or face tough consequences, and with universal and targeted activity to prevent young people starting to take drugs

Local partners working together on our long-term ambitions will be key to the strategy’s success, and we will develop a new set of local and national outcomes frameworks to measure progress against our key strategic aims through which government and public services can he held to account at both national and local levels.

Updates to this page

Published 6 December 2021
Last updated 29 April 2022 + show all updates
  1. Added accessible Welsh version.

  2. Added Welsh translation.

  3. Html version added.

  4. First published.

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