Increase in the amount of heroin confiscated by police

There were almost 30,000 drug seizures made by police in a year, a fifth of which were class A drugs, new figures have revealed.

Official statistics show that in 2011-12 there were 29,509 drug seizures carried out by officers in Scotland’s eight former police forces, up 10.5 per cent on the year before.

There were 5,788 seizures involving class A drugs – which was a drop of 4.7 per cent on the previous 12 months.

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Officers seized heroin on 2,789 occasions, a decrease of 628 on the number in 2010-11. However, the quantity of the drug seized increased by 24.9 kg to 120.5 kg.

Cocaine was seized 2,037 times, but the quantity decreased by almost a third to 99.1 kg.

There were 157,900 ecstasy-type tablets intercepted – 15 times more than in 2010-11. However, this appears to be largely due to two huge seizures in the Strathclyde area.

There was also a rise in the quantity of methadone confiscated, up to 46.2 litres.

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