DRUG LINK TO CRIME REVEALED IN TESTS

MORE than 60 per cent of criminal suspects who agreed to be tested for
illegal drugs proved positive, according to Home Office research revealed
yesterday.

In the Trafford area of Greater Manchester, 78 per cent of those tested
had used drugs.

The drugs minister, George Howarth, said the research demonstrated the
link between drugs and crime and showed a clear need for the Government's
new Drug Treatment Orders.

The orders, which will begin in pilot form in September, will force
offenders to undergo treatment for their addiction or else be sent to
prison.

"The Government has made clear its commitment to breaking the vicious
circle of drugs and crime," said Mr Howarth. "Fast-track treatment will be
tough on the causes of drug-related crime."

Nearly 20 per cent of those tested in five areas across England and Wales
during 1996-7 were using heroin, which Customs chiefs said last week was
being imported in alarming quantities. One in 10 of the suspects showed
positive for cocaine.

The research, based on urine tests, revealed traces of cannabis in 46 per
cent of those tested.

But Mike Goodman, director of the drugs charity Release, warned against
making a link between the soft drug and other criminal activity. "Cannabis
stays in the system for up to 30 days so the fact that it's been detected
does not show any causal link betw een its use and the commitment of a
crime, apart from some kind of lifestyle association," he said.

The study approached nearly 1,000 people arrested in the five police
stations, selected to be "reasonably representative of urban Britain",
said Home Office statistics chief Chris Nuttall.

Six hundred people agreed to be tested for a range of drugs. Most can only
be detected in urine for a few days after use, while cannabis stays in the
system for three to four weeks.

The results for positive tests for any illegal drug were: Sunderland 49
per cent, Nottingham 56 per cent, Cambridge 68 per cent, Hammersmith, west
London 73 per cent and Trafford 78 per cent.

A similar study in the United States found just 7 per cent of people
arrested were using heroin - compared to some 18 per cent in Britain.

Cannabis was also more common in Britain than the US, where only one third
of suspects tested positive.

But 40 per cent of Americans arrested had used cocaine.

The total cost of drug-related acquisitive crime was estimated at #2.5bn
in a second Home Office report released yesterday.

Some 130,000 "problem" users need an average of #10,000 a year to feed
their drug habits, said Michael Hough of South Bank University.

They fund half of the #1.3bn a year they spend on drugs through property
crime but the goods they steal raise only one-third of their true worth
when sold on.

The report found that 97 per cent of drug users did not have a problem
with their drug use, a finding which was contested by Mr Howarth.