Psychoactive Substances (1459A/21)
Request
For each of the years 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 could you please provide the following information:
1) How many crimes under the Psychoactive Substances Act were recorded?
2) How many crimes under the Psychoactive Substances Act were recorded with nitrous oxide as the named substance?
3) For each crime recorded under the Psychoactive Substances Act, could you tell me the substance involved and the type of offence (ie. supply of a psychoactive substance, production, possession, etc)
4) How many arrests were made for offences under the Psychoactive Substances Act?
5) How many arrests were made for offences under the Psychoactive Substances Act with nitrous oxide as the named substance?
6) How many people were charged for offences under the Psychoactive Substances Act ?
7) How many people were charged for offences under the Psychoactive Substances Act with nitrous oxide as the named substance?
Response
Please find attached our response.
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.