Hampshire: Class A drug use rise despite county lines crackdown

Class A drug use has risen across Hampshire despite efforts to curb supply, according to the county council.

The use of synthetic opiates such as fentanyl and ketamine has risen despite police and county council crackdown on county lines dealers.

Hampshire County Council said it found the use of these drugs had risen through its work on substance misuse treatment.Concerns about high drug misuse were raised during the council's cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The authority's director of adult health, Graham Allen, said that the work done by Hampshire Constabulary and the council focuses on disrupting the drug business model and reducing drug use.

A key focus was on county lines operations, where illegal drugs are transported from one area of the country to another.

Mr Allen said drug trends have changed over time and different synthetic opiates are starting to appear in the county.

He said: "There is work taking place to reduce the incidents of the use of opiates and crack cocaine, but we then see other drugs starting to come to the fore, for example, ketamine, fentanyl and other synthetic opiates.

"Some of these result from what is happening in faraway places. So, disruption to opium production in Afghanistan is then brought forward by synthetic opiates.

"There is a huge amount of attention, not only on county lines but on disruption and then indeed support for substance misuse."

According to the government, there are as many as 500 types of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, with many of them even more toxic than heroin.

National statistics show 4,859 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2021 in England and Wales; of those, 2,219 involved opiates, an increase to 61 per cent when excluding deaths that had no drug type recorded on the death certificate.

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