ALMOST one in three adults in Essex have a dangerous relationship with alcohol, according to the Department of Health.

Figures highlighted by police and crime commissioner Nick Alston show there are 336,700 people engaging in “hazardous, harmful and dependent drinking” out of the 1.15million people aged over 16 in the county.

There are also almost 5,000 class A drug addicts with 28 per cent of crimes in the county committed by people while on drugs, based on a drug test pilot.

Mr Alston is hoping to reduce this figure and £612,600 has been provided to help.

This includes:

• £502,000 to drug intervention and young people substance misuse programmes.
• £59,500 to community safety partnerships
• £18,000 to the Essex Drug and Alcohol Abuse Team
• £10,900 to 57 West for programmes in Rochford and Southend
• £5,000 to the Safer Chelmsford Partnership for research into the impact of the night time economy on the emergency services
• £16,800 to Argos and Open Road for training and employment of 12 criminals treated by Open Road to help them recover.

Almost 2,000 people in the county have received alcohol treatment interventions but there are hundreds of thousands of people who are believed to have an alcohol problem, according to medical standards.

There are almost 250,000 people classed as “hazardous” drinkers who are consuming around two bottles of wine or ten pints a week.

On top of this are the 60,000 classed as “harmful” at three pints a night and almost 35,000 classed as dependent drinkers.

The statistics put Essex well above the national average.

But the situation regarding drugs is a bigger concern as it is not just the users who are being harmed.

With more than one in four crimes in Essex committed by people on drugs there are far wider consequences.

And while drug rehabilitation programmes help about 50 per cent of people abandon them.

A spokesman for the office of the police and crime commissioner said: “£612,600 has been made available to schemes to help break dependency on alcohol and drugs.

“In order to improve the range of substance misuse programmes the Essex drug and alcohol team are seeking to deliver non residential drugs intervention programmes described as rehab without pyjamas.”