THE sight of young teenagers staggering around drunk in the evenings in town centres and on housing estates is a sorry one - and sadly not too unusual.

Fourteen and fifteen year old boys and girls are not just ravaging their health and risking a possible future addiction.

Statistically they are also on a downward path that's likely to lead on to the even more potentially threatening scourge of drugs.

Apart from the damage to their own bodies youngsters wandering about in an incapable state are also in danger of falling victim to road accidents, crime or getting involved in the sort of street violence that erupts all too frequently on Friday and Saturday nights.

Instead of picking up the pieces afterwards, as they have always had to do, it's pleasing to see how police are now becoming familiar figures patrolling estates to nip problems like this in the bud.

Our reporter spent time in Darwen with these officers to watch - not an oppressive, heavy handed approach - but a firm but fair attitude tempered with commonsense.

"We don't shout at them if they aren't doing anything wrong. We talk to them, explain what we are doing and make sure they know what they can't do," said Sgt Ian Hanson.

Teenagers, who deep down surely know they are doing wrong, seem to have accepted this and acted accordingly.

In one case that meant a 15-year-old girl voluntarily handing over her bottle of alcopop and in another two swaggering under-age teenagers eventually admitting that their coke bottle contained vodka.

Their alcohol goes down the drain and with it hopeful the chances of drunken youths and girls causing the sort of juvenile nuisance that has already sparked 53 reports this year on Darwen's St James' and Ellenshaw estates this year.

This initiative must go from strength to strength - and perhaps the parents of these youngsters will wake up to their responsibilities too.