POLICE TARGET AFFLUENT DRUG USERS

Undercover detectives are posing as posh drugs suppliers to catch
middle-class cocaine users, Britain's top police officer said.

Sir Ian Blair said Scotland Yard was using smartly-dressed officers
in "sting operations" to catch more affluent drug takers.

The tactic is seemingly a bid to honour a pledge Sir Ian made on
assuming control of Britain's biggest force a year ago, when he
insisted he wanted to stop cocaine replacing wine at dinner parties.

In an interview with The Times, Sir Ian said: "What we are trying to
do is make people understand that when they buy from a supplier...
they find they are buying from a Metropolitan Police officer. And
that is quite an upsetting experience, I understand."

Sir Ian said the strategy, under which detectives take the place of
dealers who are arrested, had already proved a success.

The people caught were not celebrities, but they were also not the
kind of person who would be buying cocaine from "a street dealer in
Brixton", he added.

Sir Ian said he wanted middle-class users of the Class A drug to
recognise the impact their habit had elsewhere.

"People need to think that young men died in estates in North London
so that someone else can have a wrap of cocaine."

However, he insisted officers were unlikely to actively disrupt
parties in a bid to stop drug use, saying: "I can't imagine the
circumstances in which the men of the Yard are crashing through the
door of a Hampstead dinner party."

The tactic came to light shortly after Sir Ian was forced to
backtrack on comments that "almost nobody" could understand why the
Soham murders became "the biggest story in Britain". He apologised
"unreservedly" for any offence caused to the parents of Holly Wells
and Jessica Chapman, but stood by his remarks about "institutional
racism" determining which crimes were covered by the press.