CHASING THE DRAGON

Scottish Office Research Indicates That Heroin Abuse Is Now Affecting All
Areas Of Society, Spurred By Slick New "Marketing"

She was a trainee nurse: a bright, pretty brunette from a solid
middle-class background. Now she is just another teenage statistic.

Morag, an occasional cannabis smoker, reluctantly followed her friends
experimenting with ecstasy and amphetamines when they went clubbing together.

Depressed and edgy in the aftermath of a big night out in Glasgow, during
which she had taken E and speed, she let herself be convinced that heroin
was the way back up. An acquaintance assured her she could not become
addicted if she smoked it.

Soon that lie engulfed her life. Smoking heroin, or "chasing the dragon",
became a part of a routine of narcotic uppers and downers. As she began to
crave ever increasing amounts to achieve a high, she began to inject the
drug. Her descent into the world of the junkie began to accelerate.

Morag's story is echoed across Scotland, in rural villages, leafy suburbs
and poor housing estates. Heroin abuse and addiction is booming, a
frightening accolade to marketing so successful that in the world of
legitimate commerce it would be regarded as miraculous.

Having had its image transformed from drug of last resort to glamorous drug
of choice, heroin abuse is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions in some
areas. The increase is particularly marked among the under-20s, with the
problem most intense in west central Scotland.

Government statistics show that 57% of those who use hard drugs admitted to
heroin abuse in 1997 compared with 45% two years earlier. An internal
Scottish Office report accepts that increased heroin abuse "affects all age
groups but is particularly marked among under-20-year-olds" - 49% regarded
heroin as their main drug in 1997 compared with 29% a year earlier.

The figures have spurred the Scottish Office to prepare a two-pronged
attack on the problem: increasing assistance to users and a crackdown on
suppliers.

The threat from the rebranding of heroin is not just a Scottish problem.
Its devastating consequences across the rest of Britain were acknowledged
in a Home Office report this year.

It said that while heroin users were seen in the 1970s as people in their
twenties pursuing a hippie way of life and in the 1980s as social
inadequates, the target of those now dealing in the drug were teenagers who
regularly took recreational drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy.

To change its image, dealers were selling heroin as "brown" or "browns" in
powder that could be smoked like cannabis, at a cost of about UKP10 a bag,
making it much the same price as an ecstasy tablet.

"The message, of course, is that heroin is apparently no more expensive and
little different from other recreational illicit drugs," said the Home
Office report. "The heroin outbreaks spreading across Britain are primarily
a product of purposeful supplying and marketing. The precursor to this has
been the strong, sustained availability of pure, inexpensive heroin
primarily from southwest Asia."

Numerous areas in the south with no history of widespread heroin use were
found to be experiencing outbreaks of drug abuse.

New underworld operators were using motorways to link big suppliers in
cities with dealers in towns and estates, employing all the methods of the
legitimate business world to conduct their trade, the report said.

The huge profits make it a risk worth taking. An ounce of heroin bought for
about UKP800 produces more than 300 bags selling at UKP10 each.

"There is little doubt that a second wave of new young heroin users is
emerging," the Home Office concluded. "With 80% of areas confidently
identifying outbreaks within their communities and providing such a
consistent picture and profile of new users it is, unfortunately,
reasonable to suggest that we are facing a second heroin epidemic."

Heroin's makeover has had just the same success in Scotland. Determined to
halt the widespread return of a drug that was once the scourge of its
patch, one police force has launched a hard-hitting and high-profile
counterattack.

Edinburgh, centre of the Lothian and Borders police area, had come a long
way towards losing its reputation as a heroin blackspot, gained in the
1980s when "shooting galleries" for injecting addicts were rife in the
capital's worst housing estates, sending the city to the top of Europe's
HIV and Aids tables.

A dramatic decline in abuse saw seizures of heroin in Lothian and Borders
fall to zero in 1995, but in 1996 they rose again to 22. That figure nearly
doubled the following year and reached 85 for the first 11 months of 1998.
Launching Operation Foil, a clampdown on the renewed heroin threat, Roy
Cameron, chief constable of Lothian and Borders, said earlier this month:
"Our motto is to slay the dragon.

"To fulfil our objective we will knock down doors, we will seize any stolen
property, confiscate illegal substances and we will arrest anyone
committing crime."

Over the next eight days, drugs with a street value of UKP550,000,
including considerable amounts of heroin, were seized. Cash and weapons,
including handguns, a crossbow and spears, were recovered and 180 arrests
made. Most of the police raids were in Edinburgh but, significantly, there
were also dawn swoops in the rural Borders.

During the same period, heroin worth UKP500,000 was found in a minibus
stopped by police in Strathclyde, where 100 people have died this year from
drug overdoses. The figure is two short of the record, set three years ago.
Many of the deaths are attributable to heroin. The 100th victim was found
on Christmas Day.

Experts suggest that the re-emergence of the sedative Temazepam may be a
significant factor in the number of deaths. The government banned the
gel-filled capsule form of the drug - known as jellies or eggs - in 1996,
but illicit supplies are back on the streets. Some hardened addicts in west
Scotland use Temazepam and heroin together. It is proving a lethal
combination.

Most worrying for ministers is the new geographic and demographic spread of
heroin. Glasgow has long had a heroin problem but new figures reveal
Grampian to have the highest official rate of heroin addiction in Scotland.
As ever, the official figures reveal only the tip of the iceberg.

The drug is increasingly getting into the hands of middle-class Scotland -
tempting teenagers and even younger school children.

The Scottish Office researchers claimed that in a typical class of about 30
11-year-old children, three will have used drugs such as cannabis,
Temazepam and heroin.

Of 900 children questioned, one in 10 said they had tried drugs, with 79%
of those claiming to have tried cannabis, 27% magic mushrooms, 15% LSD, 10%
ecstasy and 6% heroin. That 6% figure has set alarm bells ringing in the
Scottish Office.

Maxie Richards, a drug counsellor and crusader, spent Christmas in the
company of six drug addicts at her home in the prim Glasgow suburb of
Bearsden. The former headmistress of a private girls' school is horrified
by the new wave of heroin abuse.

She said: "Heroin is being strongly promoted. All the people who come to me
say that at one time they would never have touched the stuff. They were
having a good time on cannabis, ecstasy and speed. But as time went on,
they found themselves depressed and distressed, then suddenly heroin was
offered as a panacea.

"It breaks my heart. Each one of these children is somebody's son or
daughter."

Checked-by: Richard Lake