BOY, ONE, RECOVERS AFTER TAKING ECSTASY TABLET

A ONE-YEAR-OLD boy was recovering in hospital yesterday after swallowing
some Ecstasy that he found in his mother's handbag.

The boy, who remained conscious, was admitted to the Sick Children's
Hospital in Edinburgh, after his mother retrieved two partially chewed
tablets from his mouth.

Last night a spokesman for the hospital said that his condition was stable
and improving. A drugs expert said that the boy's life had probably been
saved by the swift removal of the Class A drug from his mouth and by his
mother's immediate admission to ambulance staff that he had taken Ecstasy.

It is understood that the boy found three Ecstasy tablets when crawling
around his home in Leith, Edinburgh, watched by his two-year-old sister. His
21-year-old mother, who is separated from the boy's father, told police that
the drugs did not belong to her. She found them while tidying up after a
party and put them in her bag, intending to return them to their owner.

The director of Scotland Against Drugs said that the incident should serve
as a warning to parents to be more vigilant. Alistair Ramsay said: "This
really demonstrates how careful parents have to be if they are moving in
circles where there are drug users."

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said that an investigation was
under way and a report would be sent to the procurator fiscal. It is
unlikely that the mother will face criminal charges. "She is not known to us
as a user or a dealer," a police source said.

But anti-drugs campaigners yesterday called on the police to treat the
mother like any other criminal caught in possession of a Class A drug.
Gaille McCann, of Mothers Against Drugs, said: "In a time when police are
adopting a softly, softly approach to drugs, this is a typical example of
what can go wrong."

The case is the latest in a spate of incidents involving children swallowing
illegal drugs. In January a three-year-old boy from Glasgow swallowed a
potentially lethal dose of heroin that he found in his mother's house. Last
December Danielle Pye, aged two, from St Helens, Merseyside, spent four days
in hospital after swallowing an Ecstasy tablet found in the pub where her
mother worked.