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[FOI #29414 email]

Ms Sarah Goldsmith

Reference: T3386/10 12 March 2010

T3579/10

Dear Ms Goldsmith,

Thank you for your emails of 17 and 20 February asking the Home Office to give you `the figures you hold of the number of human beings who have died directly because of their use, misuse or abuse of cannabis sativa in the UK since records began'. Your emails have been passed to the Drug Strategy Unit and I have been asked to reply.

The Home Office does not collect such figures.

The Office for National Statistics produces mortality statistics for drug-related [Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]deaths based upon information on death certificates[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]. You can contact them at [email address].[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]

The tables in [Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ][Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ][Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/dgdths0809.pdf[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ][Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ] [Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]will assist you. Cannabis was mentioned in 19[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ] deaths in 2008.[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ] However, the presence of cannabis on a death certificate does not necessarily imply it was a causative factor[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ] [Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]in a death.[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:14:00 2010 ]

[Author ID1: at Fri Mar 12 11:17:00 2010 ]

Yours sincerely,

Richard Mullins