Source: The Sunday Times (UK)
Contact: editor@sundaytimes.co.uk

Drug youth is cured in Gulf holiday trap
by Nicholas Hellen

The parents of a teenager with a ú1,000aweek drug habit saved him from a
spiral of addiction by tricking him into visiting the Gulf and then
confiscating his passport. He was forced to spend a year in a country where
narcotics dealers are beheaded.

The teenager, who had been taking drugs including cocaine, ecstasy and
marijuana, had no money to buy an air ticket home. He was cowed by local
newspaper reports about the punishment meted out to addicts and was cured
by the time he returned to Britain. His mother, who took matters into her
own hands after despairing of obtaining help from police and health
professionals, said this weekend that the family's experience had shown the
authorities' "nonjudgmental" approach to drug abuse had failed and should
be replaced with harsh new policies.

"My son said the British system provides no deterrence. It is an absolute
joke," she said. "As a committed Christian, I thank God for those countries
which have kept themelves relatively drugfree. I wouldn't want young
people I love to face the death penalty, but I have seen how fear works."

Her son first experimented with drugs as a sixth former at boarding school,
buying supplies on shopping trips to Brighton. By the time he was a
firstyear student at Brunel University, his drug habit was out of control.
On a typical Saturday night, he snorted cocaine and swallowed up to 12
ecstasy tablets before taking friends to a rave club in a car for which his
parents had paid. He lost weight, ran up mobile phone bills of up to ú300 a
month and abandoned his studies.

At first his mother and Old Etonian father, a senior executive in a
multinational oil company who was away for long periods in the Gulf, failed
to recognise the cause of his problems. When it was revealed by a member of
his circle, his mother started taping his telephone calls and hired a
private detective.

By then he had turned to drug dealing to fund his habit, working in
partnership with a friend he had known since they were at preparatory
school together. He would leave the family home in a genteel area of
Berkshire to meet other dealers, some of whom carried handguns. His mother
was so worried by threats made to him in phone calls that she began
sleeping with a loaded shotgun at her side.

Finally she decided it was time for drastic action. Her husband flew home
from the Gulf and offered their son and his partner in crime a fortnight's
beach holiday. The young men accepted and returned with him to the region
the next morning. Only after they arrived did they realise it was a trap.

"When my husband told them they were going to stay there a lot longer their
minds were already clearer," said the teenager's mother, who asked to
remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. "They were angry, but they were
also relieved that they no longer had to deal with their problems
themselves."

The families of both the addicts had agreed a "drugfree" strategy: they
would receive limited pocket money, would drink alcohol only available in
designated expatriates' hotel bars and would be allowed no girlfriends.
They would simply lead a leisurely life on the beach.

The oil executive's son failed to find a drugs supplier, then reformed.
When after six months his parents travelled to Britain for Christmas, he
stayed behind because he could not yet trust himself to resist offers of
drugs from friends. Now back home, he is training for a job in retail
management.

His mother said six in seven young people she knew took drugs. "My son
didn't want to give them up until we forced him, and unfortunately the
methods used in Britain still rely on people going voluntarily for
rehabilitation," she said. "We don't have the stomach and the political
will to fight drugs."

Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited