COMPUTER KIDS DRIVEN TO DRUGS

COMPUTER games could be responsible for turning young people on to drugs
because they no longer know how to make their own fun, Britain's drug tsar
warned yesterday.

Keith Hellawell said that today's young had become so used to having thrills
handed to them via video games that they had to dabble with drugs to get
their kicks.

Foreign travel has also made them more adventurous than previous generations
- - meaning they are more likely to dabble in drugs, he suggested.

He said he feared the computer generation were more likely to spend pounds
10 on Ecstasy on a Saturday night rather than "getting bruised on a hockey
field". Mr Hellawell also questioned why the younger generation was "so
devoid of the ability to enjoy itself without the need to be drugged up".
However, his comments prompted critics to accuse him of being out of touch.
Tom Whitwell, features editor of clubber's magazine Mixmag, said: "These
comments confirm that Mr Hellawell has lost touch with anyone under the age
of 45 in this country.

"To suggest that there is a link between computer games and drugs is naive -
if not ridiculous. There are also plenty of people who take drugs on a
Saturday night and then enjoy a game of football with their friends in a
park the next day."

Mr Hellawell, who has been given the responsibility of tackling Britain's
escalating drug problem, was speaking as he highlighted the link between the
drugs trade and human rights abuses.

He added that just as young people were quick to point out what was wrong
with the world - such as the former apartheid regime in South Africa - they
should ask themselves "how much blood is there on a line of coke?" He said
that many unscrupulous regimes were benefiting from money raised by drugs.
He cited an example of how two women were stoned to death in Afghanistan by
the Moslem Taliban authorities, who raise money from the local drugs
industry, while he was visiting there.

The women had broken a law banning them from working.

He added that entire regimes in South America were being supported by drugs
money and that many people around the world are killed for transporting
drugs. However, Mr Hellawell insisted research had shown the Government's 10
year anti-drugs strategy was bearing fruit, with signs that drug use was
levelling off and even falling among schoolchildren.He also stressed that
Britain was leading the world in terms of intervening and treating drug
addicts brought before the courts.