LOTTERY FUNDS 'HOW TO HIDE DRUGS' CHARITY

MORE than UKP 700,000 of lottery money has been awarded to a charity that
gives children tips on how to conceal drugs from their parents. The charity,
Lifeline, also gives a qualified endorsement of ecstasy as a slimming aid
for women, publishes a free DIY guide to rolling the perfect joint and
advises which surfaces are best for snorting cocaine. In addition to its
lottery grants, Lifeline receives hundreds of thousands of pounds each year
from the Home Office, which is responsible for Britain's war on drugs. The
lottery money has been awarded by the Community Fund, already under fire
from David Blunkett, the home secretary, for granting UKP 340,000 to a
charity helping asylum seekers fight deportation. That grant has been frozen
pending an inquiry. Meanwhile the Community Fund has turned down an
application for UKP 180,000 by the National Drug Prevention Alliance, which
urges people not to take drugs.

Peter Stoker, its director, said: "We were particularly disappointed because
we completed a lottery project six years ago on time and on budget.
It is ever tougher for groups who don't have a liberal bent to get funding."

This weekend the fund said it would re-examine Lifeline's activities,
although there is no suggestion the fund's money has been used for the
leaflets that appear to endorse drugs. Gerald Oppenheim, the fund's director
of policy and communications, said: "There is a line between dealing with
drugs in relation to health education and material that might appear to
encourage it." More than UKP 450,000 of lottery money has gone to a Lifeline
scheme to tackle drug misuse among south Asians in east Lancashire, with a
further UKP 185,000 to study new trends in drug use in Manchester. There
have been three smaller grants.

Opposition Politicians Have Reacted Angrily.

Angela Watkinson, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs select
committee, said of Lifeline: "You have to wonder if they are in business
to increase drug-taking, not to reduce it." Lifeline runs needle exchange
services and treatment centres and distributes about 1m leaflets a year to
schools, drug-counselling centres and nightclubs. One leaflet, Getting
Caught With Drugs, aimed at people aged 17 and under, tells them how to
avoid detection by concerned parents.

It says: "Even talking about drugs is a nightmare . . . The best advice is
don't get caught in the first place; remember, parents search bedrooms and
pockets, and cannabis smoke stinks." Teenagers not wishing to lose face in
front of friends as they first experiment with drugs may turn to a pamphlet
that describes how to roll a cannabis joint. Another Lifeline publication
describes snorting cocaine as "exciting, sexy, enjoyable and slightly
dangerous". Users are warned against sniffing it from an old vinyl record
because powder might get stuck. "Firstly it is somewhat wasteful and . . .
secondly it provides the police with valuable forensic evidence."

The author of the pamphlet, Peter McDermott, writes: "I like drugs.
I've scarfed them all up indiscriminately my whole adult life and most of my
childhood as well, and most of the time I loved every minute of it. Who on
earth doesn't want to feel absolutely certain that, as long as the coke
lasts, they're wittier, smarter and cooler than anyone else?" Another of the
charity's pamphlets gives partial endorsement to what some clubbers call the
E-Plan Diet. It says: "Some women who feel overweight try to deal with this
by taking drugs and dancing for long periods on a regular basis. Doing this
every so often is okay, providing you look after yourself the rest of the
time."

There is even a DIY-style guide to heroin, showing where to inject it. The
logo reads: "Better hits, healthier veins, healthier body." The Home Office
said it would examine the charity as part of a formal review into "drugs
communications for young people".

Michael Linnell, director of communications for Lifeline, said: "We have to
try to distance ourselves from official information. If we want people to
trust us, we have to be seen to be on their side. Users enjoy taking drugs
and we don't tell people directly not to use drugs because that doesn't
work."