Early exit: estimating and explaining early exit from drug treatment

There has been a huge increase in recent years in the number of people being assessed for structured drug treatment. The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) estimated a 113 per cent increase between 1998 and 2006 (NTA 2006b), and the number of drug users ‘in contact with treatment’ by 2006/7 was thought to be 195,000, compared to 85,000 in 1998, exceeding the NTA target to double the number of those in treatment. These figures represent an impressive effort to increase the impact of drug treatment in reducing the individual and social harms of dependent drug use.