Table 4
Charges and cases completed in adult criminal and youth court, by type of drug, Canada, 2008/2009 to 2011/2012

Table summary
This table displays the results of Charges and cases completed in adult criminal and youth court, by type of drug, Canada, 2008/2009 to 2011/2012. The information is grouped by Type of drug (appearing as row headers), Adult criminal court, Youth court, Charges and Cases, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Type of drugNote 1 Adult criminal court Youth court
ChargesNote 2 CasesNote 3 ChargesNote 2 CasesNote 3
number percent number percent number percent number percent
Cannabis 101,261 44.6 74,806 54.5 20,303 69.6 16,722 77.0
Other drugs 125,745 55.4 62,376 45.5 8,871 30.4 5,006 23.0
Cocaine 77,927 34.3 39,979 29.1 3,705 12.7 1,994 9.2
Heroin 6,239 2.7 2,372 1.7 162 0.6 54 0.2
Methamphetamines 5,368 2.4 2,590 1.9 654 2.2 351 1.6
Ecstasy 2,662 1.2 1,360 1.0 638 2.2 398 1.8
Other CDSANote 4 33,549 14.8 16,075 11.7 3,712 12.7 2,209 10.2
Total 227,006 100.0 137,182 100.0 29,174 100.0 21,728 100.0
Note 1.

If there are multiple drug-related charges, type of drug is determined by 1) the drug charge with the most serious decision, then 2) if there are multiple charges with the same decision, the charge related to the most serious violation, determined using the Crime Severity Index.

Return to note 1 referrer

Note 2.

A charge refers to a formal accusation against an accused person or company involving a federal statute offence that has been processed by the courts and received a final decision.

Return to note 2 referrer

Note 3.

A case is one or more charges against an accused person or company that were processed by the courts at the same time and received a final decision.

Return to note 3 referrer

Note 4.

Includes all other controlled drugs and substances. Includes precursors and equipment.

Return to note 4 referrer

Note: Charges and cases in this table represent a subset of completed adult criminal and youth court cases from 2008/2009 to 2011/2012. This subset includes all completed cases over this period where at least one charge was drug related and where the case was linked to police records. Data exclude information from superior courts in Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as well as municipal courts in Quebec due to the unavailability of data.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Integrated Criminal Court Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting Survey linked database, 2008/2009 to 2011/2012.
Date modified: