NI ECSTASY USE 'HIGHEST IN UK'

Young people in Northern Ireland consume more ecstasy than anywhere else in
the UK, according to the police.

Head of the Northern Ireland Drugs Squad Judith Gillespie has said it is a
major problem.

"In Northern Ireland young people consume more ecstasy per capita than the
rest of the United Kingdom. It is a major and growing problem here," she said.

"In one seizure alone we had 249,000 ecstasy tablets. Given the size of the
club-attending population in Northern Ireland, that is a lot."

Northern Ireland young people interviewed for a BBC Radio 1 documentary on
drug use in the province The Trouble with Drugs said taking ecstasy was
part of a normal night out for them.

One young man said: "Most people think nothing of going out and doing six,
seven or eight in a night. I know people who have done 12 or 15 in one night."

A former drug dealer said clubs had helped to bring a generation of
Catholic and Protestants together by providing an environment free from
sectarianism.

He said: "I can remember in Portrush ten years ago on a big night out,
sitting down beside a guy I had never met before and getting involved in a
conversation.

"The guy asked me where I was from and I said the Falls Road, and he said:
I am Roy from the Shankill, mate.

"That would never ever have happened if I had been in a Belfast city centre
bar with alcohol involved."

However, northern editor of the Sunday World newspaper, Jim McDowell, said
young people were being used by the paramilitary organisations peddling drugs.

"Belfast pubs in the centre of town always had kids going in who would meet
each other anyway. What happened was that the drugs dealers exploited that.

"I don't want my kids to be paying for e-tabs from the paramilitaries which
may pay for more guns or more explosives to kill more innocent people in
this country."

The former dealer said: "These people have guns and if you don't pay them
they can come and shoot you. I know quite a few people who have been shot -
including one friend who was shot dead."

The NI Department of Health's drug strategy co-ordinator Jo Daykin said
young people were putting themselves at grave risk when taking ecstasy.

"Nine times out of ten, a young person does not know what they are putting
into their system," she said.

"We have recently buried three young people who died as a result of taking
prescribed drugs and alcohol.

"Within five weeks of that tragic incident we had five other people
admitted to hospital in Belfast, after having had a severe reaction to
ecstasy."

The Trouble with Drugs is being aired on Radio 1's Lamacq Live programme at
2000 GMT on Monday.