ANY new initiatives to curb the menace of drugs have to be welcome, but firm controls must surely come with the departure in East Lancashire which will render people caught with small amounts immune from prosecution.

For under the scheme -- already tried in Burnley and Preston, with claims for its success -- clubbers will be routinely searched by door staff of night clubs and those found with small amounts of drugs will have them confiscated and put in a safe which the police will empty regularly. But while those caught in possession will be refused entry, they will not be reported to the police and no further legal action will be taken.

What needs to be clarified at once by the police -- especially as the scheme is now being extended as it is due to be launched in Blackburn -- is which controlled drugs and what quantities qualify for this amnesty.

After all, are not all illegal in the smallest amounts? People need to know where the line between leeway and licence lies.

So, too, are some clear guidelines required over the whole of this scheme. For it entails the police delegating a considerable responsibility to private individuals in the form of club door staff. There must be clear monitoring of its safety, effectiveness and accountability if people are to share the confidence the police apparently have that it works.

That confidence is evidently shared by Blackburn's MP, former Home Secretary Jack Straw and Lifeline, the charity working with drug users in the town. But, notably, doubts about the huge responsibility that police are delegating to club doormen -- and the suitability of some to receive it -- are expressed by anti-drugs campaigner, former police inspector Paul Betts, whose teenage daughter Leah died after taking Ecstasy in 1995.

And for parents and the public to have confidence in this scheme, it must be shown to be firmly policed itself and to truly curb the dangers of drug abuse rather than being seen as a thin-end-of-the-wedge for tolerance and quasi-legalisation of use and possession.