Pubdate: Monday, June 7, 1999 Source: Toronto Star (Canada) Copyright: 1999, The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Page: D7 Author: Lyndsay Griffiths, Reuters News Agency BRITAIN IN GRIP OF DRUG CULTURE Website: Http://Www.Thestar.Com Contact: LONDON - Britain is in a drug frenzy, with an epidemic of stories about high-flying celebrities and low-life addicts laying bare the extent of the craze. To hear the tabloid press tell it, top sports figures regularly snort cocaine, posh society is awash with pills and powders, and recreational drug users have even penetrated the BBC. >From a celebrated novelist who took heroin in the washroom of the prime minister's plane to the pop star who compares getting high to drinking tea, drugs are omnipresent. "Celebrities using drugs just reflect the rest of society. Drugs are very much part and parcel of youth culture and are likely to remain so," says Mike Goodman, director of Release, a legal advice charity. Heroin use is rising among the young and poor as prices drop, while cocaine is as common as Chianti in many professional circles in which people are cash-rich and weary from the working week. It's estimated the equivalent of $16 billion (U.S.) is spent on illegal drugs each year in Britain. "What we are finding is the normalization of drug-taking," says Keith Hellawell, the official charged with spearheading the government's drive against drugs. He released his first report on the epidemic in May. Be it designers dressing waifish models in "heroin chic" or advertisers selling mundane household products with trippy imagery, narcotics are entrenched in daily life. "Drugs are all over and they're here to stay," says Lotte McGrand of Dazed And Confused, a magazine with the pulse on youth culture. "Drugs are so common, it would be even hipper for kids not to take them." Social Trends, an annual survey by the government, says 8 per cent of 12-year-olds, 30 per cent of 14-year-olds and 40 per cent of 16-year-olds have tried drugs at least once. Teenage ecstasy deaths barely warrant a mention in a jaded press and Britain's thriving club and music industries weave drugs ever tighter into the fabric of youth culture. The upcoming movie Human Traffic, an insider's view of drugs and clubs in Wales, is touted as this summer's hit film just as Trainspotting stole headlines with its gritty portrayal of life among Scotland's junkies. A study of all 15 European Union members shows three times as many young Britons have experimented with the rave drug ecstasy than their counterparts in France or Germany. Young Britons are also much more likely to have used hallucinogens, amphetamines and solvents, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs. Last month, Tom Parker Bowles -- son of Gamma Parker Bowles, godson of Prince Charles and a friend to Britain's young princes -- was caught in a classic "honey trap" when he allegedly offered to buy cocaine for a reporter posing as a debutante at the Cannes Film Festival. Days later, the captain of England's rugby team was forced to resign when he, too, was lured into boasts of drug use and dealing by an undercover tabloid reporter. Drugs have even invaded the soccer field, with Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler answering taunts from the stands by pretending to snort cocaine off the goal line. A children's television host, a popular actor, a BBC disc jockey -- the list of alleged users fingered in the media grows ever longer. "It's deplorable. It's giving an abysmal, appalling example to young people. There's no glamour in drug-taking. It wrecks lives, it wrecks health and ruins families," says Jack Cunningham, the minister co-ordinating the government's anti-drug strategy. The government recently unveiled tough new targets to crack down on drug abuse, emphasizing treatment over punishment. It wants to cut the number of young people using heroin or cocaine by a quarter by 2005 and a half by 2008, saying addicts are responsible for 30 per cent of all crime. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea