GRIM figures on seizures of illegal drugs by Lancashire police today show Blackburn as the heroin capital of the county - and East Lancashire' s other towns firmly in the grip of the drugs menace.

But as the police captures suggest a worrying rise in abuse and availability of all kinds of banned drugs there is encouraging evidence that the war against the drugs dealers is being stepped up.

For though the indications are that the tentacles of the evil drugs trade are spreading further, the targeting by police of known heroin dealers has led to confiscations being more than tripled.

Nonetheless, these figures show the pernicious extent of drugs menace in East Lancashire.

The whole of our society must be concerned and alert to the problem. For it affects everyone in a multiplicity of ways - from the crime wave of theft and burglary that finances the users' addiction to the lives of the families that are shattered by it.

Perhaps most worrying of all is the evidence that, particularly in the case of lethal and life-destroying heroin, too many young people remain ignorant of the dangers or are content to disregard them.

Yet while the drugs menace may remain an essentially intractable problem, the reduction and containment of it, surely, lies in targeting the young with intensive education programmes to dispel dangerous ignorance and complacency.

And when there is evidence of drug abuse blackspots in the community - indications that the drugs dealers are focusing particular sectors - the response we must expect from the police is targeting of their resources in those areas.

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