text: initiated use at an older age. Currently it is not possible to determine whether this is a 
  reporting issue or a genuine shift in the age profile of new opiate/crack-cocaine users. 
  
   The report has several important policy implications. Even though numbers of new 
  initiates involved with crime have dropped to the low thousands, putting downward 
  pressure on crime, identification and early diversion to treatment remains paramount. 
  Frontier Economics have estimated that the average4 lifetime crime cost of an injecting 
  drug user is £445,000, so the potential for social harm – even from a small number of 
  individuals – remains large and potentially long-lasting. This means local areas need to 
  manage both the (relatively large) stock of current users, and the (much smaller) flow of 
  new initiates, whose treatment needs may be different. There is no evidence of any new 
  epidemic in this country, but given the impact of the epidemic of the 80s and early 90s on 
  crime, ongoing monitoring of recent trends is required to spot early signs of any emerging 
  problems. 
  
  **Aims and Methodology**
  
  Previous Home Office research has demonstrated the importance of opiate/crack-cocaine use 
  in driving aggregate trends in acquisitive crime (Morgan, 2014). While established estimates 
  exist of the total number of opiate/crack-cocaine users (OCUs) in England (Hay et al., 2013), 
  there are no estimates for the number of new OCUs each year (throughout this paper the 
  number of new OCUs is also referred to as**‘incidence’**). This is important for three main 
  reasons. 