Drug offences recorded by police jump 18 per cent in a year, including massive surge in trafficking

Drugs offences recorded by the police have soared by nearly a fifth to more than 230,000 in a year, new data shows.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said there was an 18 per cent year-on-year leap in total recorded drug crime in England and Wales in 2025.

The 230,783 total was the highest recorded since 2011.

It included a 26 per cent increase in the number of recorded drug trafficking offences, hitting just under 76,000 – the highest on record.

In other types of crime, sex offences recorded by the police climbed to a record level of 215,180 in the year, up five per cent on 2024.

Robbery hit the highest level for five years with 84,666 recorded offences.

Recorded shoplifting offences dipped by one per cent to 509,566 incidents after climbing significantly every year since the Covid pandemic.

Drug offences rocketed by 18 per cent last year. Pictured: a man smokes a cannabis joint

Retailers have previously insisted the shoplifting crimewave is far from over, however, describing how shopkeepers have given up reporting every incident to police.

Total recorded crime – excluding fraud and computer offences – was down two per cent to 5.24million.

Separately, the Crime Survey of England and Wales - which is based on thousands of interviews with the public and is designed to catch crimes not reported to police – showed levels were stable at 9.6million incidents.

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