NEW SOLUTIONS TO A LETHAL ADDICTION

THE murders of five women in Suffolk have exposed an underworld in
which normal young women fall so deeply into heroin addiction that
they will sell their bodies and risk their lives to buy the next fix.
It is a world that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and yet it
affects us all.

The common thread that joins the five victims, aside from their
profession and their addiction, is the shock expressed by family and
friends that each had fallen so far. Paula Clennell's father
described "a sweet, gentle girl" who was commended at 16 for helping
a pensioner who had fallen in the street; Gemma Adams' parents
recalled a "bright and bubbly" Brownie; Anneli Alderton went off the
rails at 17 when her computer programmer father Roy died of lung
cancer; Annette Nicholls was an aspiring beautician but, her cousin
said, "she got into heroin and it changed her almost overnight"; and
the parents of Tania Nicol said "drugs took her away into her own
secret world - a world that neither of us were aware of".

The theme is clear: the descent of these women was not preordained or
made inevitable by being born into squalor and hopelessness; on the
contrary, their early lives were full of hope and love. If such lives
were destroyed by drugs, whose daughters - and sons - are safe?

There are other self-interested reasons why everyone must take the
scourge of drugs seriously. In 2001, UKP333m raised from our taxes
was spent on drug strategies in Scotland, a figure that rises each
year as the authorities struggle to cope with the estimated 240,000
heroin addicts in the UK. What's more, it has been estimated that
these addicts each commit an average of 435 crimes a year, at a cost
to society of UKP45,000.

This is why we all have a stake in tackling the country's drug
problem - and we know that current solutions don't work. Methadone
rescues just 3% of addicts and, despite countless education
programmes, the toll of young users grows by the day.

The Scottish Executive's pledge, revealed here today, to try new
measures is encouraging. More 'cold turkey' programmes and sending
reformed addicts into schools may save a few lives here and there.
The fear remains, however, that even more radical alternatives need
to be considered. The 'tough love' proposals advocated by some drugs
experts and gaining currency among Cabinet members need to be given
serious consideration. Otherwise more lives will be lost like those
of Tania, Gemma, Anneli, Annette and Paula - and the thousands of
other addicts who die slower, less publicised deaths.