Funding
£50M Single drug fund for young people with drug problems
A £50 million single pot fund has been created to ensure young people get drug treatment, education and early intervention where it is needed, faster and more effectively.
£50 million has been merged into one fund which Drug Action Teams can spend specifically on under-19's. The fund pulls together money from the Home Office, departments for Health and Education and the Youth Justice Board and forms part of the total £155 million available this year for young people's substance misuse.
The new single pot will be used to fund a whole range of substance misuse work from education, to early intervention through to treatment and will allow better planning and commissioning of drugs services in each local area.
Figures for 2002/03 show that class A drug use among young people (16 to 24 year olds) has been broadly stable since 1996, with recent falls in class A drug use, particularly ecstasy. In 2002/03 around 5.4% of young people had used ecstasy in the past 12 months - a reduction of 21% on the previous year.
Young people who use drugs are very much in the minority. To combat this problem, the Government website launch of FRANK has been a highly successful source for children and their parents for information about all drugs. The Frank helpline received 35,000 calls in February 2004 alone, an average of almost 1,150 calls a day.
The FRANK helpline is: 0870 776600
Last update: Monday, October 30, 2006