LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE: DRUGS - SUSPECTS COULD FACE DRUG TESTS, WARNS BLAIR

Anyone arrested for an indictable offence will be forced to have a urine
test for drugs abuse under a crackdown announced yesterday by Tony Blair.
Those who test positive could be denied bail under a Crime and Justice Bill
to be unveiled in the Queen's Speech.

The introduction of compulsory drug-testing before suspects have been found
guilty of an offence will meet stiff resistance from civil liberties groups.
Jack Straw compared it to compulsory drug screening for prisoners. But it is
the first time any Government has proposed compulsory testing before cases
have reached court.

Mr Blair took the unusual step of leaking the announcement from his keynote
speech to the conference tomorrow in a BBC Breakfast with Frost interview,
which raised suspicions that the crackdown on drug crime was being used to
quash speculation over weekend claims - denied by Mr Blair - that he wanted
to go on for three terms of office, as Margaret Thatcher did.

"People are petrified about drugs," he said. "I am petrified about drugs in
respect of my own children and other people's children. I will be saying on
Tuesday in the Queen's Speech there will be a crime and justice Bill and
drugs will be the main focus of it. We will be looking at some of the key
issues that we just ducked - all governments - for far too long."

The Home Secretary said there was a huge disturbing link between drug users
and crime. There were an estimated 100,00 to 200,000 problem drug users in
England and Wales and each would commit scores of crimes to feed their habit.

The tough action will be seen as an admission that the Government has failed
to curb drug-related crime. It also means Charles Kennedy, the Liberal
Democrat leader, will be isolated in calling for a royal commission to
review de-criminalising cannabis.

Mr Straw firmly rejected that and said voluntary testing suggested half of
all those arrested had taken drugs recently. Officials said most of the 61
per cent who tested positive in trials in Manchester, London, Sunderland and
other cities had been taking cannabis, but 18 per cent tested positive for
heroin and 10 per cent for cocaine or crack.

John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "These
proposals are wrong in principle and risk breaching the European Convention
on Human Rights.

"The link between drugs and crime is problematic and needs to be broken but
eroding rights won't crack crime and this approach misses the whole point -
which is to stop people becoming problematic drug users in the first place."