ONE tragic tale of drug abuse could help equip Lancaster with a mobile education centre warning children about the dangers of drugs, if a £300,000 lottery bid comes up trumps. The bid is being backed by Lancashire Police's solicitor Niamh Noone who spoke to the Citizen this week about the tragic drugs death of her teenage son. Niamh believes her son Gareth, 16, was killed by his own ignorance. He was found dead in bed at his home in Langho, Blackburn, last October after taking a cocktail of methadone and Tamazepam.

A post mortem showed the dose of the heroin-substitute he took was so small it would only have killed an inexperienced user.

His mother said: "I know children will experiment, but had Gareth known what these drugs could do to his body he wouldn't have taken them.

"Looking back I think it was the second time Gareth had taken methadone because the weekend before he died he came home acting strangely.

"Later that week he came to me and admitted he had got in with a bad crowd. But he said 'don't worry, I will get out of it'. I wish I has pursued it further but I don't think I could have stopped him. The only thing that could was if he had known the effects of what he was going to take."

Now, Miss Noone is urging parents and teachers to support an innovative drugs information programme called the Life Education Trust for Lancashire.

The Life Education Trust are planning to bid for Lottery help to fund two more mobile units. So far the trust has only one centre which is expected to roam across Lancashire including Lancaster, Blackpool, Preston, West Lancashire, the Rossendale Valley and Burnley.

Each of the hi-tech mobile centres - which include video screens and working models of the human body - cost around £60,000 and the trust is desperately in need of funds to provide one for each of the six education districts in Lancashire.

Chairman of the trust, Edwin Jacks said: "At the moment we are deciding exactly how much money to bid for. We hope to have the first centre up and running to visit schools in the Autumn term and in the meantime we will start training programmes for the staff who'll be teaching the children."

If you can help, call Edwin Jacks on 63721.

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