Drug Use in England and Wales: Stability, Shifts, and What the Latest ONS Data Really Shows
- emcat55
- Dec 15
- 3 min read
The Office for National Statistics just released its latest report on drug use in England and Wales, drawing from the Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year ending March 2025. This survey, based on self-reported answers from adults aged 16–59, with an extra look at 16–24 year old's, is about as close as we get to a real picture of drug use across the country.
At first glance, not much has changed. Drug misuse hasn’t shot up, and there’s no sign of a post-pandemic spike. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll see some real shifts: drug use among young people keeps dropping, the gap between age groups is shrinking, and some substances - especially nitrous oxide - have taken a nosedive. That’s likely no coincidence, given nitrous oxide’s recent move to Class C status in late 2023.
Of course, there are limits to what these numbers can tell us. The data is self-reported, and misses some of the highest-risk groups - like people without stable housing or those in prison. There’s also a data gap from the pandemic years. Even so, the trends are clear and pretty consistent.
The Numbers—Snapshot
Any illicit drug use in the last year:
- 8.7% of adults aged 16–59 (about 2.9 million people). That’s basically unchanged from last year and lines up with rates from ten years ago.
- 15.1% of 16–24 year old's (roughly 899,000 people). Down a bit from last year, and way down from both 2015 and the late 1990s, when almost a third of young people reported using drugs.
Class A drug use:
- 3.3% of adults aged 16–59 (about 1.1 million).
- 4.5% of 16–24 year old's - well below the mid-2010s.
How often do people actually use drugs? Only 2% of adults say they use more than once a month. Seven out of ten users take drugs infrequently, maybe just once or twice a year. So, most people aren’t using heavily or often - it’s more occasional, contained use.
Which Drugs Stand Out?
Cannabis dominates the numbers and shapes the overall trends.
- Cannabis: 6.5% of adults aged 16–59; 12.5% of 16–24 year old's. Use is steady, but much lower among young people than it was a decade ago. About a third of users take it more than once a month, but daily users are still a minority.
- Powder cocaine: 2.1% (16–59); 2.3% (16–24). Levels are steady, but use among young adults has dropped since 2015.
- Ecstasy: 1.2% (16–59); 1.9% (16–24). Nothing like its peak in the mid-2010s.
Where Are Things Changing?
Some of the biggest drops are in:
- Nitrous oxide: Use among 16–24 year olds has fallen sharply (from 3.3% to 1.3%), likely tied to its new legal status.
- Hallucinogens, including magic mushrooms, are down among young people.
- New psychoactive substances (“legal highs”) keep fading.
- Other drugs - ketamine, heroin, amphetamines - are rare in the data and show no big changes year to year.
Who’s Using?
The patterns are familiar: higher use among younger adults, those who are single, and people in lower-income households. The age gap is closing, not because older people are suddenly using more, but because use among young people has dropped so much since the 1990s.
Getting drugs still isn’t hard. Over a third said they could get them within 24 hours, usually through friends or colleagues.
Why Does This Matter?
All together, these results show England and Wales have a mature, mostly steady drug scene. There’s no explosion in use, but there’s also no dramatic drop in overall numbers.
The good news stands out: youth drug use keeps falling, nitrous oxide and “legal highs” have dropped sharply, and frequent use remains low. Prevention, cultural change, and targeted law seem to be making a difference.
Still, with about 9% of adults using drugs each year—and signs of dependence and persistently high drug-related deaths—the risks are real. And since the survey leaves out some of the most at-risk groups, the true scale is probably higher.
Bottom line: there’s no crisis, but no reason to relax. The data shows progress in some areas, stubborn problems in others, and a real need for thoughtful, balanced drug policy.
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