BEGGING FOR HELP TO BEAT ADDICTION

Shoppers in Leeds generally warm to Kyle the beggar whose ambushes in Lands
Lane would win him a job as a salesman.

But his wit and charm haven't a hope against the heroin addiction which
lost him his electrician's traineeship, his girlfriend and every go he's
had at regular work for the past seven years.

Kyle, 29, is typical of scores of street beggars in one of the north's
richest cities, who now face UKP80 fines and compulsory drug treatment in
David Blunkett's crackdown on anti-social behaviour. He dismisses the fine:
"They've never caught me yet." But the treatment is something he's dreamed
about for years.

"Drugs took my life away," he says, looking back on the first, thoughtless
smokes and pills he took as a teenager in York, too weak to resist pressure
from friends. "I want it back. I've got seven GCSEs and I had a lot going
for me. But how will they make this treatment work? Because it definitely
isn't working now."

The gaping hole in detox provision which threatens to undermine the
Blunkett plan is highlighted by mates of Kyle who drift up to his patch by
the Headrow to see what's going off. Ellen, also 29, and a prostitute for
10 years to pay for heroin, says: "Basically Kyle, you've got to be dying
to get it. That's what's just happened to me. Otherwise it's two months for
an appointment and three months before they get the treatment underway.
What good is that?"

Ellen was detoxed in time. "I've been clean for six weeks." But her
vulnerable, agitated air underlines the need for long aftercare as well as
immediate treatment.

Dave Thompson, 40, sells the evening paper in Lands Lane. He got addicted
to heroin in Israel, trying to cope with personal problems. He's a
qualified engineer who speaks fluent Hebrew, Dutch and French.

"I'm not criminally-minded, so I get my money selling these," he says,
handing out another paper folded to show the headline UKP80 Fines for
Street Yobs. "But it's getting off drugs that we all want. That's what Mr
Blunkett has to tackle. It's just hopeless the time you have to wait." He
is trying to raise UKP2,000 for private detox treatment. The Big Issue in
the North spent UKP100,000 last year on private medicine for addicts.

"It's no good talking about sweeping beggars off the streets if you don't
consider why they're there in the first place," said Margaret Quinn at the
magazine's office in Manchester. "And the government's got to make sure
that effective medical treatment is ready for them."