HOME Office Minister George Howarth has been urged to ensure that the lessons learned by a pioneering Bolton project on young offenders and drugs are put into practice. Last week local MP Brian Iddon raised the question of the Bolton Young Offenders Misuse of Drugs project with Mr Howarth at Home Office Questions. The Bolton South East MP said, this excellent project, which has been paid for for three years by the Department of Health, would finish this month.

But he said its examination of the link between drugs and crime had identified various gaps in the service that needed fulfilling.

He asked: "One that concerns me is the absence of treatment services for very young people - that is, those under 18."

Dr Iddon - who has taken a special interest in drugs and crime since the murder of four year old Dillon Hull in his constituency - said children as young as 14 found there were no tailored facilities for them if they became addicted to drugs and the only option was to go to adult clinics, if there was room.

Relapse

The project also identified the fact that young people who had come off drugs while in custody frequently returned to their addiction on being released because there was no supervisory or rehabilitation regime available to help them stay clean.

Dr Iddon said that young people coming out of prison needed help to ensure they did not relapse onto drugs - often for quite long periods of time.

And the final gap identified was young, former addicts who had been off drugs for some time, would find themselves in a crisis where they were tempted to relapse but had nowhere to turn for help.

Dr Iddon said that there needed to be some helpline or group where former addicts could go to if they were in danger of going back on drugs to provide them with the support they needed to stay clean.

Mr Howarth , who paid tribute to Dr Iddon's work in this matter, said he was concerned that - "the right resources are not in all the right places to deal with the problem of drug-taking at a young age".

"We are in continuous dialogue with our colleagues at the Department of Health and we are determined that, where appropriate, treatment-based approaches should be available to people at every age.

"It is particularly important that we catch people as young as possible so that they do not get into the spiral of drug abuse, particularly abuse of hard drugs, which leads to crime and often, in the longer term, to very serious crime. It is important that we intervene as early as possible."

Dr Iddon welcomed his response and said: "It is vital that the lessons learned from this project are put into practice. They could have a very wide application in tackling the problem."

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