A HEROIN addict with a moderate to heavy habit commits crime costing £355,000 a year.

A day in the life of such a drug user, and the upset, anger and distress he leaves in his wake, was highlighted at a conference, Tackling Drugs Together, at Rawtenstall.

Senior probation officer Ian Gilbraith told 100 conference delegates at the Astoria that such a user needed to spend £80 a day on drugs.

Normally he was someone who received benefits but they quickly went to pay debts to people who were not too scrupulous on how they went back their money.

So he went to commit a house burglary. On average he caused £50 damage getting in and stealing the video which cost £300 to replace. He then went along to the pub and sold it for £30 still leaving him £50 short for the day.

A repeat performance still left him £20 short so he broke a window in a good quality car causing £75 damage and stiole the radio cassette player worth £200. For that he received £20 and so got his £80 for the day.

The total cost of his crimes that day was £975. It had to be repeated every day of the year, bringing the cost to £355,000.

Mr Gilbraith stressed: "That does not include the fear and distress caused to the two householders, their families and neighbours or to the car owner who is, at least, extremely angry.''

Mr Gilbraith said that targeting dealers, carrying out seizures and imposing long prison sentences were not a deterrent. Crime prevention just moved the problem elsewhere or the addict changed the substances he was using. "The only long-term way of tackling it is to get them into some sort of treatment and at least as important is to try to make sure other people don't become addicts in the future.''

Aiming for that objective, along with increasing the safety of communities from drug-related crime, reducing the acceptability of availability of drugs to young people and reducing the health risks, was part of the target of the conference.

It was attended by members of the Lancashire Drugs Action Team, probation officers, drugs education officers, doctors and members of various help and community groups.

The results from the discussions will be fed back to the East Lancashire Drug Reference Group and other appropriate bodies.

The conference was chaired by Bill Ashworth, chairman of the East Lancashire Health Authority.

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