DRUG TSAR WARNS OF CUT-PRICE HEROIN

Record amounts of heroin were seized by Customs last year, reflecting the
increasingly widespread availability of the drug on Britain's streets, it
was revealed yesterday.

A total of 1,747kg of heroin was seized in 1997, a tonne more than the
previous year. Police estimate the haul has a street value of more than
#145m and is the equivalent of 9 million "wraps". A wrap represents between
one and four hits and is being sold on the streets for the same price as a
pint of beer.

At a press conference yesterday at which the annual Customs & Excise
figures were announced, Keith Hellawell, the Government's "drugs tsar",
said heroin dealers were getting youngsters hooked by selling the drug at a
loss and suggesting they smoke rather than inject it. Some young people
take the view that it is "all right" to smoke drugs, but "stupid" to
inject, he said.

"It becomes more attractive to the young user when the pusher says 'I'm not
going to sell you stuff that gives you Aids; have this stuff to smoke, it
gives you better hits and better highs than the other stuff cannabis'."

Mr Hellawell spoke of "an erosion of resistance" towards softer drugs among
the young. "Once you get a generation believing that illegal substances -
and some legal substances - are attractive and that it doesn't matter, they
naturally will go and try something else. Youngsters are discounting
cannabis. Campaigns that are saying it ought to be legalised, that more
people are doing it, mean they just discount it . There's a sort of
machoism - and whatever the equivalent word for girls is - where they say,
'I'm going to go for it, I'm not going to play with this stuff cannabis'."

About 80 per cent of the heroin seized comes via theBalkans. The heroin is
produced from opium grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and is then
transported in cars, vans, coaches and lorries from Istanbul through
Bulgaria, Romania, into Austria and Germany, through the Benelux countries,
and into Britain.

Dick Kellaway, Customs' national investigation service chief, highlighted
Customs officers' successes, including the discovery of more than 200kg of
heroin under the carpets of two speedboats, and the detection of 450kg in a
consignment of bathrobes. But he called for more co-operation between drug
enforcement agencies across the world.

"The Turkish authorities have given us some assistance in tackling the
problem, but more remains to be done
BritishY Customs takes pride in
having made a significant contribution to tackling a global problem, a
problem which can only be approached by countries working together. We
earnestly hope that at a time when the UK has presidency of the European
Union, there will be further improvements in judicial co-operation to allow
even more effective joint effort."

In total, Customs seized more than 82 tonnes of drugs, with a street value
of around #656m, and disrupted 134 major drug smuggling gangs.

The amount of cocaine seized totalled more than 2 tonnes, up from 1,157 kg
the previous year; seizures of cannabis amounted to nearly 77 tonnes,
slightly up on 1996.