[continued from previous message] 
  
 of the routes is blocked then they will try and find another. The worry is 
 that there is more on the streets and the price has fallen.' Latest figures 
 indicate there are 327,000 hard-drug users, although drugs charities worry 
 the figure could be as high as 500,000. 
  
 Shapiro said that all evidence points to the fact that the most 
 disenfranchised have become the most vulnerable to heroin. 'We know about 
 the aristocratic heroin users but those at risk of becoming chronic heroin 
 users come from poor backgrounds, are homeless or have mental health 
 problems. Areas of deprivation are the most vulnerable. You are more likely 
 to have addicts in Middlesbrough and Grimsby than, say, Richmond. While the 
 absolute numbers have not skyrocketed like in the Eighties or Nineties. The 
 distribution of heroin has spread a lot more evenly across the country.' 
  
 Scoring heroin, he said, may have become too simple. Eventually, though, 
 most addicts, find themselves beholden to a dealer who will use intimidation 
 to ensure their custom, a practice pushers call 'powder power'. Purity 
 fluctuates wildly. During the summer, when the supply was lower, the quality 
 fell to as low as 0.2 per cent of heroin compared to five per cent which is 
 the highest purity level British users expect. 
  
 Its strength has improved recently though Mike warns that such changeable 
 purity levels offer an omnipresent threat. One sudden, strong doseage can 
 kill. But, as always, cost remains the key factor. On London's King's Road 
 in 1976, heroin cost Mike €100 a gram. Last year it fell to €58. Police 
 sources believe its current price of half that may yet fall further. 
  
 Since the tail-end of the Eighties, addicts have been able to receive free 
 clean needles and daily doses of the heroin substitute methadone. The 
 strategy was called 'harm reduction'. Its aim was to curb the spread of the 
 HIV virus among Britain's addicts. Initially controversial, the strategy 
 eventually became the standard approach. 
  
 But has it worked? If anything, what was meant to have sated Britain's 
 fondness for junk may only have exacerbated its appetite. One academic 
 specialising in research into illegal drugs concluded last week that 
 Britain's drug problems have escalated during a period when it should have 
 been improving. 
  
 Prof Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at 
 Glasgow University, said that the current approach - which has been 
 intensified under Labour - had produced 'only modest success'. 'With 
 approaching 15 years experience of harm reduction we have a situation in 
 which not only the number of problem users has increased substantially, but 
 the prevalence of problem drug use has escalated substantially,' he said. 
  
 Mike's experiences are, McKeganey found, the norm. His report found that 
 around 40 per cent of drug users in Britain are Hepatitis C positive with 
 thousands dying from drug-related causes. Drug use, he added, continues to 
 fuel high levels of offending and scar entire communities. 
  
 Hollis concurs that the chronic reoffending of a hardcore of heroin addicts 
 needs to be urgently tackled and remains a persistent source of exasperation 
 to officers on the front-line. 
  
 Perhaps those best qualified to comment are those who have felt heroin's 
 grip - the diarrhoea, the aching limbs, the burning vomit and the long, 
 feverish nights. Only one solution remains workable to those like Mike; 
 heroin must be legalised and offered on prescription if the cycle of crime 
 and community breakdown is to be broken. Even so, the price will be high 
 according to those who have seen heroin's damage first-hand. 'It might mean 
 writing off a generation.' 
  
 Heroin 
  
 € Used widely as a painkiller in the 19th century in Britain, heroin can be 
 smoked - 'chasing the dragon' - snorted or injected. 
  
 € Acutely addictive and fast-acting, it is described by users as giving them 
 a feeling of warmth, relaxation and detachment within seconds. 
  
 € Addicts spend an average of €10,000 a year feeding their habit. Famous 
 users include John Lennon and Charlie Parker. 
  
 € Also known as brown, china white, dragon, gear, H, horse, junk, skag, 
 smack and jack. 
  
 € A Class A drug, it is an opiate derived from the dried milk of the opium 
 poppy. Heroin is made from morphine. 
  
 € Afghanistan supplies 90 per cent of heroin found in the UK. 
  
 € Methadone is the main treatment for heroin addicts, although it is an 
 addictive drug in itself, producing feelings of euphoria and sedation, but 
 to a lesser degree. 
  
  
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