THE CRACK DEN NEXT DOOR

Police Policy Towards Neighbourhood Drug Dealers Is Hopelessly Inadequate
And Needs A Complete Overhaul

The oddest thing about living next door to a crack den is how boring it
becomes. After a while, the screaming rows, the urine-soaked steps and
abuse from users become predictable and depressing rather than disturbing.
I was scared when addicts tried to enter my home and wept with frustration
when I had to scrape human faeces away from my front door. But I was
largely inured to these problems until I turned the corner of my road one
morning and saw the Crimestoppers posters.

"Don't let London suffer the side effects of crack," the adverts thunder,
urging us to shop dealers. At that point, anger took over.

Well, I have shopped and shopped and shopped, and so have most of my
neighbours. We have shopped so enthusiastically we make Elton John look
frugal. We have sung like a choir of canaries, offering times, dates and
vehicle number plates.

Six months on, the crack house is thriving and pensioners are still scared
to go out on their own. Hardly surprising, since crack dealing is
associated with aggression, violence and theft. Users spend almost twice as
much on their habit as heroin addicts - UKP478 a month, on average - which
might explain why they are so keen to get into our homes.

For all these reasons, I welcome the Home Office's new plans to tackle the
problem. Bob Ainsworth, the drugs minister, has promised extra cash for 37
crack-ridden communities, including mine in London; overall, the government
will beef up its anti-drugs budget by UKP500m to UKP1.5bn by 2005.

It has issued new guidelines for those fighting drugs and has promised to
improve policing, tailor services for addicts and support vulnerable young
people to stop them falling prey to the drug in the first place. Police
forces are targeting markets and officers have closed down three dens in my
neighbourhood alone.

All of this sounds terrific, and much of it might help. Perhaps, with luck,
"our" crackhouse will be the next to go.

The good news is that crack can still be controlled; it is not (yet) an
epidemic. According to last year's British Crime Survey, only 0.2% of 16-
to 59-year-olds had taken it in the last year.

Dealing is heavily concentrated in deprived areas like mine. But it is not
an inevitable consequence of poverty and there are measures that can - and
must - be taken while broader issues are addressed. The question is whether
a 34-page plan will succeed where common sense has so far failed. The
inadequacies of existing practice are blindingly obvious to anyone who has
encountered crack use.

First, we need prompt action. We know that police resources are stretched,
but crack must be a priority. I say that not just because it is in my back
(or front) yard, but because the longer dealing is allowed to continue, the
more entrenched it becomes.

Suppliers and their customers become increasingly brazen; dealers have time
to find vulnerable people whose homes they can use when existing crack
houses are closed. Worst of all, users become addicts.

Forget the myths. No one gets hooked on crack from a single hit. It takes
time to de velop a habit, which is why we need to disrupt that process as
soon as possible.

For the same reason, we need to target users as well as suppliers. Dealers
are smart enough to sell crack in small quantities so that customers take
it at once.

Police say there is no point in "attending" because the evidence has
disappeared by the time they arrive. But that can hardly be the case when
they are called in the middle of a large delivery.

Second, we need better coordination. Information is not filtering through
organisations, never mind reaching other agencies. You can report an
immediate problem to police, but that does not mean that their colleagues
will know about it the next day or even the next week. They complain about
a lack of help but squander what they are given.

Coordination also means thinking about long-term consequences, ensuring
that users are rehoused in new areas and are not replaced by vulnerable
people who are likely to fall prey to dealers.

Third, action must be sustained. At one point the police camped out on my
street for four days, intercepting addicts on their way to the crackhouse.
Glorious peace reigned... for four days; the morning after they left, the
users returned.

Most of all, we need help for addicts. Users must be offered help at the
first opportunity and must continue to be offered support even if - more
probably when - they reject it or relapse.

Heroin addicts get methadone; crack users lack even that imperfect
substitute, so need treatment such as therapy rather than a drug-based regime.

The government's most important promise is to think creatively, and to
ensure early appointments and low waiting times.

That crack addicts are among the drug users most reluctant to seek
treatment is more, not less, reason to focus on helping them. My neighbour
and his customers are not bad people. They are desperate. So are those of
us who have to live with them.