FOI 607-2025 / June 2025 / Weight loss
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 607-2025
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 5th June 2025 as follows:
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The main purpose of this request is to gather data on the illegal supply and use of weight loss injections.
I am requesting the following data, covering the period from January 1, 2020, to the present (including partial data for 2025, if available):
Specifically, I am seeking information on the following:
*Incidents and Investigations:*
- The number of recorded incidents or investigations involving the illegal sale, possession, or administration of weight loss injections from January 1st 2020, to the most recent available date.
- A breakdown of how many incidents occurred in each calendar year
*Arrests and Outcomes:*
- The number of arrests made in connection with these incidents 2. The number of individuals charged or prosecuted as a result
[IF HELD]
*Substances Involved:*
- A list of weight loss substances involved in these cases, where recorded (e.g. semaglutide, liraglutide, or other prescription-only or unlicensed drugs)
Please find the Warwickshire Police response set out below.
Response: Please be advised that the requested information is not centrally recorded and therefore not held in a readily retrievable format. There is no flag or marker to identify where illegal sale, possession, or administration of weight loss injections has taken place in relation to an offence. Keyword searches are not carried out routinely as they are not reliable, they will only bring back records where the chosen keyword(s) is present within the MO Description / Incident Summary of an investigation. These are limited free text fields and do not contain all information in relation to an investigation. In order to ascertain what information is held and retrieve and collate that information, it would be necessary to review thousands of investigations on an individual basis. This would take an inordinate amount of time which would greatly exceed the amount to which we are legally required to respond, i.e., the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. For Police forces in the UK, the ‘appropriate limit’ is up to 18 hours of work on one request.
In accordance with section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a Refusal Notice for this request.
In accordance with Section 16 of the Act, I have a duty to provide advice and assistance; however, due to the volume of records, which would need to be individually reviewed, I am unable to suggest a way to reduce your request into one which could be managed within the fees limit.
Outside of the Act, and as a gesture of goodwill, I can advise that, although the limitations of a keyword search have been set out above, I have included a link to a previous request concerning this topic, where the requestor specifically asked for a keyword search to be undertaken, which you may find of interest.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is as accurate as possible.
Your attention is drawn to the below which details your right of complaint.
Should you have any further enquiries concerning this matter, please write or email the Freedom of Information Unit quoting the reference number above.
Yours sincerely
Freedom of Information Officer
Freedom of Information Unit
Warwickshire Police
PO Box 4
Leek Wootton
Warwickshire
CV35 7QB