IT CANNOT be disputed that the police cannot be everywhere at once and, so, must deal with their workload according to priorities.

Even so, is there not a disturbing and telling contrast in the situation we report tonight - when we find Lancashire Constabulary mounting yet another breath-test blitz against motorists while, at the same time, they are apparently too stretched to investigate the discovery of drugs reported to them by two members of the public?

Out walking, an Oswaldtwistle couple spotted handfuls of white tablets on a footpath near their home.

As each pill was stamped with a capital "E," they were concerned that they might be the so-called "rave" drug, Ecstasy.

So, dutifully, they rang the police at Accrington.

The incredible response was that they should flush the pills down the toilet - and then go back and see if they could find any more.

The explanation today is that, because the police were busy dealing with a murder investigation, they could not deal with matters they would normally investigate.

This is revealing for it suggests that either our police manpower is so insufficient that even preventing drug abuse can at times no longer be a priority, or that their priorities are badly awry if investigating an instance of drugs in the community is not among them when unleashing yet another drive against the now-minimal problem of drink-driving is. We are sure that our Chief Constable would accept - as official statistics show - drugs crime is a far greater problem in our community than motorists having too much to drink.

Therefore, if finite and costly police resources have to be effectively deployed, would they not be much better employed against the drugs menace than in having thousands of innocent motorists pulled up for no good reason?

We saw what a waste of time and effort these road checks were last Christmas and New Year - when, out of more than 32,000 drivers stopped, just five were arrested for drinking-driving.

But if, with this B-test bee still buzzing in its bonnet, Lancashire Constabulary has the manpower and wherewithal to stage another of these futile purges, it can, surely, find the resources to send a bobby out to deal with what no doubt the rest of us regard as a bigger threat to the public.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.