According to the National Crime Agency, there has “never been a more dangerous time to use drugs” in the UK, saying a rise in deaths from synthetic opioids and an increase in global cocaine production were posing a greater threat to life.
Since June last year, 284 deaths have been confirmed from the synthetic opioids nitasenes, after use surged again last summer.
NCA Director-General Graeme Biggar told a briefing that the deaths represented a “relatively small proportion of total drug deaths” but that the significant growth in the number of drug-related deaths – and the nature of them – was cause for concern.
“A lot of the other drug deaths are from decades of drug use… but with nitasenes you can absolutely die the very first time you take it and with nitasenes you often don’t even know you’re taking it,” Biggar said.
He added that the risk was that “anyone, a teenager, could take a drug thinking it’s something else, and it’s nitasene. It’s incredibly strong and you die.”
In his annual threat assessment of serious and organised crime, the NCA identified drugs as one of several areas where dangers and harms increased last year. Child sexual abuse, cybercrime, money laundering and organised acquisitive crime were also identified as growth areas.
The number of people dying from drug abuse in Britain has increased by 60% in the past decade and tripled in the past 30 years. Biggar said this gave Britain “one of the highest drug death rates in Europe” and that the estimated cost to society of drug abuse was £20 billion.
Cannabis is still the most commonly used drug in the UK, with the vast majority produced through large-scale domestic cultivation, but increasing amounts are also imported by airline passengers.
“One thing that has really stood out to us over the last 18 months is the extent to which people are trying to bring cannabis into the country as airline passengers in their own luggage,” Biggar said.
“We have already seized more than double the amount of cannabis in 2024 than we did in the whole of 2023 from airline passengers coming ashore. And we are seeing people blatantly carrying entire suitcases with nothing in them except cannabis. We didn’t see that in the same way two or three years ago.”
On firearms, the message was more positive: deaths were near historic lows and there had been successes in cutting off the supply chain of firearms made from blanks, meaning the threat was assessed as diminishing.
Biggar said: “Last year, 25 people were killed by a firearm in the UK, one of the lowest figures ever.
“Of course, every single death is a tragedy, and we will continue to work as hard as we can to keep the gun threat under control. But compare us to any other country in Europe, let alone North America, and we have a good record.”
Biggar said the declining threat of firearms was partly due to low societal acceptance of them, as well as successful regulation and law enforcement. “It’s something that is still hugely important to us, of course, but an area that I think we should be quietly proud of as a country.”
There were 25 cases of seizure of 3D-printed firearm parts or related items, such as blueprints, during targeted police investigations last year, up from 17 cases in 2022, but still rare.
The NCA also reported that the overall threat level for fraud and organised immigration crime has decreased in 2023. However, the NCA warned that a recent increase in small boat activity means this is unlikely to be the case in 2024.