CRACK DEALERS TARGET THE MIDDLE CLASSES

Crack cocaine use among middle-class people is increasing at an alarming
rate, leading drug charities have warned.

The charities have found that increasing numbers of professional people are
being treated for crack addiction. One London centre estimates that 40 per
cent of its patients are from a professional background. Addicts have
included solicitors, local government officers, estate agents, chefs,
artists, City executives and media workers.

Counsellors believe that the spread of the drug is the result of an
aggressive campaign by dealers, who are persuading middle-class cocaine
users - a large and affluent customer base - to switch to crack.

In recent years millions of professional people worldwide have tried
cocaine, believing it to be less addictive than alcohol or tobacco.

Last month Mike Fuller, the deputy assistant commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police, described London as "the cocaine capital of the world".

The spread of crack among middle-class users will be highlighted at a
national conference organised by the Home Office, which starts tomorrow in
Birmingham.

One of the conference speakers will be Daniel Taettmeyer, of the Blenheim
Project, a drug rehabilitation charity in west London."There is no doubt
that crack is affecting every socio-economic area," he said last week. "We
are seeing people from every walk of life."

Aidan Gray, the national co-ordinator of Coca, an organisation that
supports counsellors working with crack users, said: "Drug service agencies
have been concerned mainly with helping unemployed people and I think this
has to change now.

He said: "A lot of people still don't understand the dangers of crack."

Crack is a chemically altered form of cocaine made by heating it with
baking soda and water. Normally smoked, it is extremely addictive and after
an initial high, the user can feel anxiety, depression, fatigue and
paranoia. The drug has strong links with risk-taking behaviour and violence.

Adam Frankland, a counsellor with Turning Point, a London-based drug
charity, sees the effects the drug has on users every day and has also
noticed an increase in its use by professional people.

He said: "There has been a definite increase in the number of middle-class
people taking crack cocaine. It has encroached into all areas of society.
More than 40 per cent of people we see with crack problems are professionals."

Mr Frankland believes that dealers are pushing crack because it fetches
twice the price of cocaine. A gram of cocaine in central London currently
sells for UKP50, while the same amount of crack will fetch between UKP100
and UYP110.

He said: "Dealers are pretending not to have any cocaine on them and are
encouraging users to try crack. They sell it cheaply to begin with or give
it away."

Emma Winward, 28, a public school-educated journalist and former addict,
was first introduced to crack this way.

Four years ago, a dealer who she trusted, and from whom she had bought
cocaine, suggested that she try the more addictive drug. Nothing in her
background could have prepared her for crack's effect.

She said: "He told me, 'Have this one rock.' I remember smoking it and
thinking, 'Wow, this is amazing.' Twenty minutes later I wanted another
fix. From then on there was not a moment when I didn't want it."

"It was awful. The obsession was like an illness, like a hurricane. I began
selling my possessions and then I would beg on the streets. At the end of
it I looked like a skeleton. I thought I was going to die."

After trying a number of private rehabilitation clinics, she eventually
weaned herself off the drug with the help of Narcotics Anonymous.

She said:"I should be dead really, or a prostitute, but I have my life back
now and work again. Living isn't a battle anymore."

A spokesman for the Home Office said that the Government had not undertaken
any research into crack cocaine use among people from different social
backgrounds but was working with agencies to tackle the problem.