New opiate and crack-cocaine users: characteristics and trends 27 
 
between March 2011 and March 2015 can also be seen in the raw numbers for total new OCU 
treatment presentations.22 
Figure 10: New treatment presentations for opiate/crack use. 
 
 
Figure 10 shows that, rather than increasing in the current year, new presentations for 
opiate/crack use have actually fallen slightly from 48,154 in 2013/14 to 47,241 in 2014/15, a 
decrease of 1.9%. However, given that the early signs of previous opiate/crack use epidemics 
have been missed before (see Morgan, 2014), and the potential social harm that a fresh 
increase in new OCUs could cause, further analysis was conducted on the most recent data to 
try and determine whether the apparent flattening in trends was actually caused by the early 
stages of a significant surge in new users. 
The treatment data was broken down by age to check whether the slight fall in total new 
presentations in 2014/15 masked an increase in younger treatment presentations. This showed 
instead that opiate/crack presentations by those aged 18-24 had fallen from 3,579 in 2013/14 to 
3,021 in 2014/15, a fall of 15.6%. In other words, younger new presentations have fallen at a 
faster rate over the last year than for those aged over-25. Furthermore, separate statistics 
produced for those in treatment aged 18-and-under also show a fall in aggregate numbers in 
treatment for opiates and crack.    
We also looked at trends at the local level, given that previous epidemics have started in very 
specific areas and have taken several years to spread nationally. This means that the start of an 
epidemic can be hidden in the national data because it has not reached enough areas to 
register.  
 
22  Note that this series counts the start of any new treatment journey, regardless of whether an individual has been in treatment 
before. So unlike our definition of ‘new’ elsewhere it includes individuals who have been to treatment previously.