WITH the scourge of drug abuse wrecking thousands of lives and breeding countless offences of theft and muggings by desperate addicts, the new crackdown by Lancashire Police is as necessary as it is welcome.

And, above all, this drive has to be encouraged because it is aimed at the major source of the misery and crime -- the evil drug dealers.

As part of the county-wide Safer Streets in Lancashire initiative, which stems from the government's drive to cut street crime in ten police force areas in Britain, police chiefs in East Lancashire have pledged to raid a dealer a day.

And their prime target are those dealing in Class A 'hard' drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine that are responsible for the worst addiction problems and all the related crime, social strain and family heartbreak that go hand in hand with the drugs plague.

Equally encouraging is the fact that this new crackdown is not a short-term initiative. It will, the police vow, be relentless, with the daily raids on dealers taking place "for the foreseeable future." And with a link clearly established between drug abuse and the street crimes of robbery, car-jacking, snatch theft, possession of firearms and drug trafficking itself -- all of which are covered by the government-led initiative -- it is evident that all the pressure that the police can put on dealers who are the root cause must be relentlessly applied.

It is also heartening that, coupled with this zero-tolerance offensive against dealers, the police are to mount high-visibility patrols in 'hot spot' areas of drug abuse as their presence will reassure communities plagued by this menace that a difference can be made in their neighbourhoods.

And people living in these areas will be reassured already by the success of the first of the raids last night by a team of 12 officers which netted a haul of suspected drugs and cash. The police have much to do in the war against drugs and the public must give them every co-operation to help them score many more successes like this.