It’s official: These are the drug capitals of the UK

The drug capitals of the UK have been revealed and there are a few shocks.

Predictable giants Manchester and London are joined by supposed narcotic backwaters like Cleveland and Hampshire.

We crunched Home Office stats on the quantity of drugs seized by each police force. See if your region made the illustrious list

Cocaine – London, duh

Police seized 422kg of cocaine in the 2018/19 financial year. A fitting unit of time for the city with three and a half times as much cocaine as everywhere else. Nottingham, Manchester, and Brighton all make strong contributions to the cocaine league table.

The top five areas for cocaine seized:

London – 422kg

Nottinghamshire – 118kg

Greater Manchester – 35kg

Sussex – 23kg

Northumbria – 16kg

Ecstasy – Manchester

Keen to never, ever let go, Manchester find themselves nearly doubling the ecstasy quantities of everywhere else.

Elsewhere, notable gurning counties include Essex, Devon, and Cornwall.

The top five areas for ecstasy seized, measured by doses seized:

Greater Manchester -115,000

Essex – 64,000

London – 58,000

Devon and Cornwall – 18,000

Sussex – 15,000

Ketamine – Essex

Now, you don’t necessarily associate Essex with ketamine. But, the horse tranquiliser is probably the most regionally diverse substance on our list.

The top five regions for ketamine, by kilograms seized:

Essex – 6kg

Leicestershire – 5kg

London – 3kg

Northumbria – 2kg

Sussex – 1kg

Cannabis – Cleveland (?)

Why are people from Cleveland the biggest stoners in the country? Boasting Middlesborough, Hartlepool, and Stockton-on-Tees – none of which jump out as stops on the Pineapple Express – the region seems to have its secrets. With 870kg of cannabis seized by police, it’s leading the way. Massive shout-outs to Derbyshire and Hampshire also.

The top five areas for kilograms of cannabis seized by police:

Cleveland – 870kg

London – 731kg

Derbyshire – 644kg

Hampshire – 460kg

Greater Manchester – 360kg

Despite stereotypes, London gets beaten by quite a few obscure parts of the country. So to balance it out, here’s a stat: the City London has over 15 times as much cocaine per million people as anywhere else in the country.

Overall, way more drugs are being seized by police. Of cocaine, the Home Office report says: “The quantity of cocaine seized also increased by 6,307 kg from 3,338 kg in 2017/18 to 9,645 kg in 2018/19. This is the largest quantity of cocaine seized since recording began in 1973.”

For MDMA, it’s a similar story, with the report finding: “The quantity of ecstasy seized increased from 0.7 million doses in 2017/18 to 2.2 million doses in 2018/19. This was the highest quantity seized since 2006/07.”

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