The Drug Harm Index (DHI) was developed as the overarching measure for the PSA target to reduce the harm caused by illegal drugs. It combines robust national indicators of the harms generated by illegal drugs into a single-figure time-series index. The harms include drug-related crime, community perceptions of drug problems, drug nuisance, and the various health consequences that arise from drug abuse. This latest update adds data for 2006 and incorporates revised figures for earlier years. It shows that the DHI has fallen from 80.5 in 2005 to 68.8 in 2006. This is a drop of 11.7 points or 14.5 per cent. This compares to a decrease of 5.7 per cent between 2004 and 2005. The index has now fallen year-on-year since 2001.
The fall in the DHI between 2005 and 2006 is largely due to reductions in drug-related crime and a decrease in drug deaths.
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