Cannabis Consumption (1739A/22)
Request
a) What reporting has WMP commissioned, or received from other forces, ACPO, police colleges, experts, or the Home Office – to establish any link between – the significant growth in heavy cannabis consumption in teenage and young adults males (under the age of say 30), the reported wide availability of stronger strains of cannabis (that is known to induce paranoia, suspicion, aggression, & anger) – and rising levels of violent crime over the past 10 years?
b) Has any work been carried out, to establish the numbers arrested or charged for any form of violent crime, who have traces of any psychoactive drug on their system, or who admit to persistent drug use /dependency?
Response
a) No specific recorded information held.
b) Please see attached (1739A_22_attachment.pdf).
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 a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.