A COUNTRY SWAMPED WITH CUT-PRICE DRUGS

LONDON - The cost of drugs in many parts of Britain has plummeted in
the past year, an authoritative study reveals.

Specialists also disclosed that the potentially lethal practice known
as "speedballing", in which users inject a mixture of heroin and
cocaine, is reaching epidemic levels. The low price of many drugs
suggests they are readily available throughout the country and that
police and customs are losing the war on drugs.

A new survey of 20 cities and towns provides an insight into trends,
offering a level of local detail rarely seen before. The report by
the charity DrugScope found that dealers have been increasingly
offering cut-price drugs, with heroin costing UKP 5 ($14.60) a bag in
Middlesbrough, and Ecstasy as little as 75p ($2.20) a tablet in Cardiff.

Towns such as Gloucester and Penzance - where the price of heroin has
dropped from UKP 60 ($175.50) to UKP 40 ($117) a gram during the past
year - are being targeted with "special offers" to attract new users.

The survey also found that abuse of muscle-enhancing anabolic
steroids is becoming a mainstream problem.

Overall drug prices in Britain continued to remain static -
suggesting that police and customs action has had little effect on
availability. When supply is restricted, prices rise.

A separate report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has
also claimed that Britain has the highest rate of "problem" drug
abuse in Europe. It found that nearly one in every 100 of the
working-age population was an addict.

The DrugScope report discovered huge regional variation in the cost
and availability of drugs.

The purity of drugs also fluctuates throughout the country. In
Liverpool a seemingly cheap 0.3g UKP 15 ($44) bag of "heroin" is on
average only 25 per cent pure. The cheapest cocaine, UKP 35 ($102.50)
a gram, is available in Birmingham and Liverpool - both cities where
drugs are generally cheaper than the rest of the country. Cardiff has
the cheapest Ecstasy pills.

Researchers also found clubbers were using a wide range of drugs,
including CK1, GHB, Viagra and a vast array of obscure designer drugs.

But the most alarming development highlighted by the study for the
drug charity's Druglink magazine was the rise in "speedballing" or
"snowballing", which specialists fear will result in more overdoses,
infections, and crime. The survey of 80 frontline drug agencies and
police forces discovered that injecting the heroin and cocaine
cocktail, also called "curry and rice", had risen sharply in the past
year in Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester, London, Bristol,
Nottingham, Ipswich and York.

A second study of 100 drug addicts revealed that speedballing was the
main method of drug-taking for 80 per cent of those interviewed,
compared with 25 per cent a decade ago.

The research by Dr Russell Newcombe at the Manchester drugs charity
Lifeline found that speedballers had three times as many convictions
as those only using heroin. It said speedballers spent UKP 500
($1465) a week on the drugs - UKP 26,000 ($76,100) a year - compared
with UKP 110 ($322) for heroin-only addicts.

Speedballers say the combined stimulant-sedative effects in one shot
complement each other.

"You get the euphoric rush of the crack and then the heroin takes the
jagged edge off it," said one user.

In a separate study of injecting drug-users, more than half of 1000
needle exchange clients questioned in Wigan, Reading, Middlesbrough,
Manchester, Bristol and Devon had injected a speedball. Drug agencies
are concerned about speedballing because it increases the risk of
overdose. People who speedball also inject up to five times more
often than heroin-only injectors, which means they are more likely to
inject directly into an artery, block veins and get deep vein
thrombosis and abscesses.

High-profile deaths attributed to speedballing include US actors John
Belushi, 33, who died in 1982 at a Los Angeles hotel, and River
Phoenix, 23, who died in 1993 outside a Hollywood nightclub. A
speedball is usually made by crumbling a crack rock into a preheated
spoon of heroin and a form of citric acid in water - which makes a
soluble cocktail. It is then drawn into a syringe and injected. The
average speedball costs UKP 20 ($58.50), UKP 10 ($29) each of crack and heroin.

More dealers are selling heroin in UKP 10 bags rather than by the
gram, and some parts of the country continue to report dealers
offering "discount offers" on combined bags of heroin and crack
cocaine, fuelling the speedball craze. In Liverpool, dealers are
offering a free rock of crack for every two UKP 10 bags of heroin
bought, while in Ipswich buying a bag of "brown" and "white" together
yields a UKP 10 discount on a UKP 30 ($88) purchase. In Gloucester,
the price of the two drugs has halved since last year and in Penzance
an influx of dealers from Liverpool has led to price cuts.

Harry Shapiro, the editor of Druglink, said: "Although speedballing
isn't a new phenomenon, it is clearly on the increase and, if this
trend continues, it will be bad news for attempts to reduce the
spread of injecting-related diseases and the number of drug overdoses."

The survey also found that the popularity of anabolic steroids had
rocketed, with significant use in Blackpool, London, Birmingham,
Middlesbrough, Nottingham, Torquay, Cardiff, Manchester, Portsmouth,
Luton and Newcastle. Traditionally used by bodybuilders, they are now
being taken by young people to improve their physique. Side-effects
can include reduced sperm count, kidney and liver problems, high
blood pressure and increased aggression.