The £264m cost of substance misuse

Tackling substance misuse costs Lincolnshire services a staggering £264 million each year, new reports have revealed.

This includes the demands placed on health, social care, prison, law enforcement and emergency services, writes Local Democracy Reporter, Daniel Jaines.
Around 7,000 people are currently estimated to be dependent on alcohol misuse, while just under 4,000 are thought to be dependent on opiates or crack cocaine.
There are around 3,300 people in treatment (in total, for alcohol and drugs) in Lincolnshire.
The figures underscore the significant economic burden of substance misuse on the county.
It’s laid out in a report on the re-commissioning of Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery to Lincolnshire County Council’s Adults and Community Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee.
The report highlights that: “Drug misuse costs society £20 billion a year which equates to £350 per person (£264m in Lincolnshire).
“In Lincolnshire, 83 people lose their lives to illicit drugs each year.”
The report also reveals that 3.7 per cent of children in Lincolnshire live with an adult that misuses substances, leading to a higher likelihood of these children entering the criminal justice system and experiencing poor health.
Additionally, 19 per cent of children who were living with people who entered substance misuse treatment during 2021/22 were also receiving some form of support or intervention from Children’s Services.
The report also sheds light on the wider societal impact of substance misuse.
When parents are unable to care for their children due to substance use, the responsibility often falls to grandparents, known as kinship carers.
A national charity addressing the negative effects of drugs and alcohol on families reports that 57 per cent of kinship carers have either given up work or reduced their working hours to care for a child.
The ripple effects of substance misuse extend beyond immediate family. One in three adults are affected by a relative’s alcohol use, the report claims.
Alcohol led to 12,568 hospital admissions across Lincolnshire during 2021-22.
There were 320 alcohol-related deaths in the county in the same year. The documents further note that: “For every £1 spent on treatment there is a saving of £4 through reduced demands on health, social care, prison, law enforcement and emergency services.
“For Lincolnshire, a core budget of £5,437,652 will create an estimated £21,750,608 return on investment.”
In response to these challenges, Lincolnshire County Council is set to re-commission a county-wide all-age Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery service and a separate all-age Family and Affected Others support service.
The new contracts are set to commence from April 1.
Councillors told last week’s meeting of the committee current efforts were only “scratching the surface” of the problem and felt more needed to be done to tackle the issue head-on.
Coun Trevor Young said: “It feels like a tsunami is going to hit us eventually, it is a major problem.”
Coun Tracey Carter called for a rehab centre in Lincolnshire in the face of these costs.
“It’s ridiculous that alcohol-related issues and deaths and crime costs £264m. We should really have a rehab centre in Lincolnshire now, we absolutely should.”
She said starting the new contract was a “slight improvement” but “doesn’t go far enough”.