Drug seizures and offender characteristics: 2014-2015 and 2015-2016

Number of Seizures and Quantities of Drugs Seized

• The quantity of drugs seized can fluctuate considerably each year and does not necessarily move in line with the number of seizures made. Whilst most drug seizures consist of relatively small quantities (usually possession-related crimes), annual quantities of drugs seized can be greatly influenced by a small number of large seizures (usually supply-related crimes).

Drug Supply Crimes

• Intelligence led operations against known drug dealers tend to result in a low number of seizures, but conversely the quantity of drugs seized and their value will be high. These high profile operations may result in greater disruption to the illicit drugs trade which, whilst having a positive effect, may reduce the number of seizures made. As such care should be taken when comparing quantities of drugs seized over time.
• A significant proportion of drugs seized in terms of quantity come from seizures related to supply crimes, despite making up a relatively small proportion of the overall number of seizures.
• This section covers drugs seized where the crime was one of drug supply, drug production or illegal importation of drugs. For both years it was not possible to collect data from every police record around these crimes. As such the figures provided relate to an estimated 85% and 92% of drug supply-related crimes in 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively, for full information see the Data Quality Statement in the Annex.

Class A drugs seized from Drug Supply Crimes

• Table 1 shows that in 2015-16, Police Scotland reported that they seized 74.0 kilograms (kg) of heroin, 82.7 kg of cocaine and 4.2 kg of crack cocaine from drug supply crimes. This is compared to 106.1 kg of heroin, 75.7 kg of cocaine and 0.0 kg of crack cocaine in 2014-15.
• Approximately 13,400 ecstasy-type tablets were seized in 2015-16, compared to just over 15,000 in 2014-15.
• 4.3 litres of methadone was seized by Police Scotland in 2015-16, compared to 8.1 litres in 2014-15.

Table 1: Number of seizures and quantity seized from supply crimes - Class A drugs ¹

		2014-15		2015-16
Drug	Units	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized
Cocaine Powder	kg	366	75.7	506	82.7
Crack Cocaine	kg	3	0.0	25	4.2
Ecstasy-type Substances	tablets (000s)	89	15.1	148	13.4
Heroin	kg	553	106.1	737	74.0
LSD	tablets (000s)	3	0.1	6	0.0
Methadone	litres	34	8.1	11	4.3
Methylamphetamine	kg	0	0.0	0	0.0
Morphine	litres	3	0.1	18	0.0

1. Data for 2014-15 is based on an estimated 85% of all drug supply-related crimes and data for 2015-16 is based on an estimated 92% of all drug supply-related crimes.

• Compared to other types of Class A Drugs, relatively small amounts of LSD and methylamphetamine (or "speed") were seized in 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Class B drugs seized from Drug Supply Crimes

• Table 2 shows the quantities of class B drugs seized in 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Table 2: Number of seizures and quantity seized from supply crimes - Class B drugs ¹

		2014-15		2015-16
Drug	Units	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized
Herbal Cannabis	kg	731	165.4	905	413.9
Cannabis resin	kg	268	153.4	400	570.4
Cannabis plants	plants	594	13,022	655	31,398
Amphetamines	kg	124	118.4	135	71.8
Barbiturates	tablets (000s)	0	0.0	0	0.0
Ketamine	kg	2	0.0	2	0.0
Mephedrone	kg	2	0.0	11	0.9

1. Data for 2014-15 is based on an estimated 85% of all drug supply-related crimes and data for 2015-16 is based on an estimated 92% of all drug supply-related crimes.

• The quantity of cannabis related drug seizures from drug supply crimes in 2015-16 included 413.9 kg of herbal cannabis, 570.4 kg of cannabis resin and almost 31,400 cannabis plants. This is compared to 165.4 kg of herbal cannabis, 153.4 kg of cannabis resin and just over 13,000 cannabis plants in 2014-15.
• There were 71.8 kg of amphetamines and 0.9 kg of mephedrone seized from drug supply crimes in 2015-16.

Class C drugs seized from Drug Supply Crimes

• Table 3 shows the quantities of class C drugs seized from drug supply crimes.

Table 3: Number of seizures and quantity seized from supply crimes - Class C drugs ¹

		2014-15		2015-16
Drug	Units	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized	Number of Seizures	Quantity Seized
Anabolic Steroids	tablets (000s)	3	0.3	5	0.3
GHB	litres	0	0.0	2	0.0
Temazepam	tablets (000s)	2	0.0	4	1.3
Diazepam and other Benzodiazepines	tablets (000s)	419	1,182.7	382	1,276.1

1. Data for 2014-15 is based on an estimated 85% of all drug supply-related crimes and data for 2015-16 is based on an estimated 92% of all drug supply-related crimes.

• Most class C seizures were of diazepam and other benzodiazepines, with approximately 1.2 million tablets seized in 2014-15 and 1.3 million tablets in 2015-16. In previous bulletins separate figures were presented on seizures of diazepam and other benzodiazepines, however this split has not been possible for 2014-15 and 2015-16. Whilst a combined figure has been presented on this occasion, the vast majority of tablets seized are likely to have been diazepam.
• Approximately 300 tablets of anabolic steroids and approximately 1,300 tablets of temazepam were seized in 2015-16.

Drug Possession Crimes

• The majority of seizures of controlled drugs are from drug possession crimes, however by their nature these incidents involve a relatively small quantity of drugs being seized. As a result, drug possession crimes account for only a small proportion of all drugs seized in terms of quantity, despite accounting for the vast majority of seizures.
• The data presented below for drug possession crimes is based on a sample of 400 records per year. As this analysis is drawn from a sample of records, users should treat the following information as a broad indication of the characteristics of drug possession rather than as an exact measure. All figures are presented at a national level as the sample size is too small to provide robust estimates for geographies below this.

Number of Drug Possession crimes by Drug Classification

• In total, there were 31,632 drug possession crimes recorded by the police in 2014-15, and 29,929 drug possession crimes in 2015-16.
• Table 4 shows the distribution of the classification of drugs seized in the sample for 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively. There is also a resulting estimate of the total number of possession crimes involving each class of drug.

Table 4: Estimated number of drug possession crimes by drug classification, 2014-15 and 2015-16

	2014-15		2015-16
Drug Class	Percentage of records in the sample	Estimated total number of crimes 1	Percentage of records in the sample	Estimated total number of crimes 1
Class A	15.8%	5,000	17.5%	5,200
Class B	68.0%	21,500	67.5%	20,200
Class C	15.8%	5,000	14.5%	4,300
Unclassified 2	0.5%	200	0.5%	100
Total	100%	31,632	100%	29,929

1. As these figures are estimates they have been rounded to the nearest 100
2. In a small number of cases the drug type could not be classified due to lack of information or no controlled drugs were seized.

• For both years, slightly more than two thirds of all drug possession crimes were estimated to involve class B drugs.
• The remaining third of drug possession seizures involved class A or class C drugs. In 2014-15 the sample estimated an even split between the two classes. In 2015-16 there were slightly more seizures involving class A drugs than class C, however this difference is not statistically significant.

Quantity of drugs seized from Drug Possession Crimes

• Tables 5 and 6 provide estimates of the quantity of drugs seized from 2014-15 and 2015-16 for particular drug types. Estimates of the quantity seized from drug possession crimes have only been calculated where there were at least 15 observations of that drug being seized in the sample.
• The quantity has been estimated by multiplying the average quantity seized in the sample by the estimated number of drug possession seizures involving that drug.

Table 5: Quantity of drugs seized from drug possession crime by drug type, 2014-15

Drug	Units	Drug Class	Percentage of sample	Estimated number of crimes 1	Estimated quantity seized
Cocaine	kg	A	7.8%	2,500	4.1
Heroin	kg	A	4.8%	1,500	0.8
Herbal Cannabis	kg	B	43.0%	13,600	36.2
Cannabis Resin	kg	B	21.0%	6,600	14.8
Diazepam	tablets (000s)	C	14.5%	4,600	151.3

1. As these figures are estimates they have been rounded to the nearest 100

Table 6: Quantity of drugs seized from drug possession crime by drug type, 2015-16

Drug	Units	Drug Class	Percentage of sample	Estimated number of crimes 1	Estimated quantity seized
Cocaine	kg	A	8.3%	2,500	6.1
Heroin	kg	A	6.0%	1,800	2.1
Herbal Cannabis	kg	B	46.8%	14,000	36.8
Cannabis Resin	kg	B	16.8%	5,000	17.6
Diazepam	tablets (000s)	C	12.3%	3,700	63.2

1. As these figures are estimates they have been rounded to the nearest 100

• In both years, cocaine, heroin, herbal cannabis, cannabis resin and diazepam accounted for approximately 90% of all drug possession seizures. The quantities seized for most of these drugs is reasonably similar between 2014-15 and 2015-16. The exception to this is diazepam where an estimated 151,300 tablets were seized in 2014-15, compared to 63,200 tablets in 2015-16.
• Herbal cannabis is the most commonly seized drug by a considerable margin, with cannabis resin the second most commonly seized drug. In both years just under two-thirds (64%) of all possession-related seizures involved these two drug types.

Overall quantity of drugs seized

• Table 7 shows the total quantity of drugs seized for the drug types where an estimate of the quantity seized from possession crimes has been made. The figures shown in the table are the sum of the quantities seized from supply-related crimes and the estimated quantity seized from possession crimes.
• For those drug types not shown in Table 7, there were fewer than 15 observations in the sample of possession crimes for each year, and therefore the total quantity seized from possession crimes is likely to be very small. Due to this the quantity seized from supply-related crimes shown in Tables 1, 2 and 3 should provide a reasonable estimate of the total quantity seized.

Table 7: Total quantity of drugs seized by drug type, 2014-15 and 2015-16 ²

Drug	Units	Drug Class	Estimated quantity seized in 2014-15	Estimated quantity seized in 2015-16
Cocaine	kg	A	79.9	88.8
Heroin	kg	A	106.8	76.1
Herbal Cannabis	kg	B	201.6	450.7
Cannabis Resin	kg	B	168.2	588.0
Diazepam 1	tablets (000s)	C	1,334.0	1,339.3

1. For the element of this which applies to supply based crimes a small proportion of these will be other benzodiazepines
2. For the element of this which applies to supply based crimes there was an estimated coverage of 85% of crimes in 2014-15 and 92% of crimes in 2015-16.

• For all of these drugs types the quantity of drugs seized from possession crimes is relatively small when compared to the quantity seized from supply crimes.
• In 2015-16, 88.8 kg of cocaine was seized in total compared to 79.9 kg in 2014-15. There was also 76.1 kg of heroin seized in 2015-16 compared to 106.8 kg in the previous year.
• In total, 450.7 kg of herbal cannabis was seized in 2015-16 compared to 201.6 kg in 2014-15. The quantity of cannabis resin seized in 2015-16 was 588.0 kg compared to 168.2 kg in 2014-15.
• Approximately 1.3 million diazepam tablets were seized in both 2014-15 and 2015-16.