Drug Driving - 494/20

Date Responded 24 March 2020

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

I am after a yearly breakdown of the number of people charged with a drug-driving offence and the number of people tested for drug-driving, For each question please could you provide a breakdown for the past five years, starting with March 2015 - February 2016, March 2016 - February 2017, March 2017 - February 2018, March 2018 - February 2019 and March 2019 - February 2020.

In particular, are you able to provide me with:

A yearly breakdown of the total number of people charged with a drug-driving related offence.
A yearly breakdown of the total number of people who tested positive for drug-driving.

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted within Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

Period Start	Period End	Count - Drugs
Mar-2015	Feb-2016	73
Mar-2016	Feb-2017	105
Mar-2017	Feb-2018	178
Mar-2018	Feb-2019	99
Mar-2019	Feb-2020	89

Period Start	Period End	Count
Mar-2015	Feb-2016	154
Mar-2016	Feb-2017	226
Mar-2017	Feb-2018	275
Mar-2018	Feb-2019	135
Mar-2019	Feb-2020	228

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.