New opiate and crack-cocaine users: characteristics and trends 6 
 
1. Drug Interventions Programme Data 
The Drug Interventions Programme (DIP) was introduced in April 2003 with the aim of 
developing and integrating measures for directing adult drug-misusing offenders into drug 
treatment and reducing offending behaviour. Offenders charged with certain ‘trigger offences’ 
(mostly acquisitive crime or drug offences) were drug tested and those testing positive were 
required to have a drug treatment assessment.  
This section contains a series of descriptive statistics taken from the DIP dataset covering the 
years from 2004 to 2013. The particular focus is on analysis that can shed light on trends and 
characteristics for new opiate or crack-cocaine users (OCUs). Because it is a dataset predicated 
on involvement with the criminal justice system it is only representative of a subset of OCUs: 
those who have been arrested or charged with an offence – mostly an acquisitive crime offence 
(around 85 per cent of the offences leading to a positive drugs test are acquisitive6). Research 
has shown that up to half of all OCUs commit little or no acquisitive crime (Gossop et al, 2003; 
Morgan, 2014). So the analysis in this section provides only a guide to the numbers, trends and 
characteristics for the total number of new OCUs. But it does provide a helpful picture for the 
crime-involved subset of new OCUs.  
Aspects of DIP have changed over time and this affects the data available, so it is important to 
run through them briefly. In 2005, testing was switched from the point of charge to the point of 
arrest. DIP was introduced in different areas in waves with the total number of areas increasing 
through 2004 to 2006. After this point, there was more consistency in DIP’s geographical 
coverage, though some other areas that were not part of the nationally funded programme, did 
choose to run their own drug-testing-on-arrest programmes and some of these data have also 
been collected within the DIP data. This process increased slightly from 2010 when all police 
forces in England and Wales were given authorisation to conduct drug testing and related 
treatment interventions. This enabled local partners in all areas to decide whether or not to 
introduce drug testing as a locally driven approach to reducing drug-related offending. Again, 
some of these data were also captured alongside the data from the original DIP areas. In April 
2013, DIP ceased to be a nationally funded programme. Instead, Police and Crime 
Commissioners (PCCs) were given the power to decide which local interventions (including drug 
testing on arrest) they would fund to address Class A drug-related offending. Drug testing 
continues to operate in many areas across England and Wales, but in some areas there may be 
drop-off in the data from that point. 
A full discussion of DIP’s geographical coverage over time is contained in the Appendix, which 
also shows how the available data break down by local authority area. While there is some 
variation in the number of local authorities returning DIP data, particularly post-2006, areas with 
higher test volumes are well covered throughout the period. So, while any trend should be 
treated with care, more confidence can be taken in the analysis of the year of birth and age 
characteristics.   
 
6  See Appendix 3 in: http://socialwelfare.bl.uk/subject-areas/services-activity/substance-misuse/homeoffice/141816horr02c.pdf