So-called "chemsex" drugs and former legal highs will be targeted as part of a new government blitz. Ministers have launched a strategy which aims to reduce illicit drug use and improve dependence recovery rates. Figures show drug misuse has been falling. In 2015/16, 2.7 million - over 8 per cent - of 16 to 59-year-olds in England and Wales took illegal drugs, down from 10.5 per cent a decade ago.

Martin Powell, head of campaigns at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, criticised the strategy. He said: "It won't protect young people and communities because it is the same failed old recipe of criminalisation and under-funding that has led to record numbers of vulnerable people dying."

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "The drugs strategy won't work. It totally fails to address a key problem: treating drug dependence as a criminal justice issue rather than a health one." Read more via Independent