EU ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN TARGETS CLUBBERS

European anti-drug campaigners have identified dance halls and clubbing as
new priority areas in their fight against drug abuse by young people.

"The fastest growing drug use is not among the young who are excluded from
society and have problems. It is around the dance scene and involves the
employed and achievers who are getting deeper and deeper into drugs," Keith
Hellawell, the anti-drugs co-ordinator for England and Wales said yesterday.

"We have to work out how to influence the clubber not to take drugs," he
added after attending a two-day EU conference in Brussels on drugs policies
in Europe.

In particular, the anti-drugs Czar singled out ecstasy which he insisted was
not a lower level recreational drug, but was "highly damaging" given the
amount dancers might take in an evening or during their clubbing career.

While acknowledging that the UK could learn from the experience of policies
in other countries, most notably the emphasis placed in the Netherlands on
treatment programmes, he insisted that the Government was well to the fore
in tackling drug abuse.

"We are 18 months into our ten-year strategy and that puts us ahead of most
member states. Our strategy is bang in line with the European Union's and
even predates it. We are already seeing some positive results," he said.

The strategy had helped reduce the overdose death rate to one of the lowest
in Europe, while the HIV rate from shared needles is already the lowest, he
added.