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VIDEO: Reaching out to Leeds addicts - COMMENT ON THIS STORY
Leeds received £9.2 million this year to tackle the city's drug problem - an average of £1,300 for each of the 7,000 or so drug users known to live in the city. That money is spent on fighting drug crime and paying for dedicated drugs workers who trawl the city's streets to reach out to addicts.
Eric McLaughlin was just 10-years-old when his slide into drugs started.
Troubled by a violent home life in Middleton, Leeds, and by his mother's suicide, he started sniffing gas.That led to harder street drugs and now he is a long-term heroin addict.
He also uses cocaine and alcohol – and has recently been jailed after assaulting a police officer.
Today he cuts a tragic figure, sitting in a bus shelter with fellow addicts.
Louise Hirst is another long-term user.
The Wakefield-born 28-year-old first injected heroin when she was 19 and still injects and smokes three or four times a week.
She can score a bag of heroin on the city's streets for just 15 – and admits the temporary buzz isn't worth it.
She lost custody of her eight-year-old daughter because of her drug use – and even admits to using heroin while pregnant.
Eric and Louise are just two of about 200 hard drug users identified in the city – and part of just under 7,000 "problem drug users" in the city in total, according to the Safer Leeds partnership.
Eric's heroin-ravaged face makes him look a lot older than his 30 years.
"I just take drugs to blank things out," he said. "I feel alone and on my own, that's why I do it."
It might seem a typical excuse, but a look in Eric's haunted eyes betrays his harrowing history and desperation for escape.
He talks passionately about his hopes of becoming a gardener and explains he signed up for a scheme run by the Prince's Trust when he was in prison.
And he is desperate to get on a 'script' – a drugs treatment programme.
Figures from the Safer Leeds team suggest access to treatment is quicker than ever before – and that 97 per cent of people referred to treatment are now able to start it in less than three weeks.
Even for cases like Eric and Louise, it seems, there is some hope.
Today, it comes in the form of the drugs outreach team from St Anne's Resource Centre, one of several community drugs services who have had contact with 6,000 people in the past year.
Every week they go out and about with rucksacks full of spoons, clean needles and bins for dirty ones, which they hand out in packs to users.
Hardly the way to get an addict off drugs, traditionalists might say, but this is a vital part of the process of weaning people off.
It is not unknown for workers – some of whom are ex-addicts themselves – to show clients how to smoke heroin rather than inject it, which is far more dangerous.
John Ruttledge has been with St Anne's for 18 months as a drugs outreach worker.
"The best thing I can hear as a worker is somebody saying 'I'm sick of it'," he said.
"It's not easy to get onto a project so we go out to them to the city centre and the outskirts.
"People recognise our bags and approach us or we will make eye contact, they will give us a nod and we approach them.
"Quite often we have to be delicate because we are in their environment."
This alternative environment is far removed from the hustle, bustle and city glamour you would usually associate with a trip through the heart of Leeds.
But for Eric and Louise, this is life.
Eric has often slept rough in the city centre and been moved off by police many times, but always comes back because, as he says, he has nowhere else to go.
But in the outreach team, he and his fellow users have found a vital source of help.
"They look after you," he said.
"People are using dirty needles, these guys keep us clean.
"People who want to stop are going to stop on their own but they need help.
"As soon as I get on a script I will be there.
"I want to get a job and I just want to get help."
For Louise too, the role of the outreach team is vital in her recovery process, which has already started with her signing on to St Anne's treatment programme.
She has now moved on to a substitute drugs programme and the long road to recovery.
"They make a lot of difference", she says of the team.
"I love speaking to them.
"It's good they give us clean needles – they reduce the risks and they give us hope.
"I have tried to get off drugs before and I can do it. Even if it takes 10 years I will do it.
"I have a beautiful daughter and I will do it for her."
Ann Sunter, area manager for St Anne's drug project, said Leeds's drug problems are no worse than any other major city and this is borne out by national figures.
But she says – and the users agree – the work being done to tackle the problem is among the best and most successful.
"(Getting people on] the recovery programme is what we aim for," she said.
"Some people are going to take drugs whether our service is there or not.
"We provide a way of ensuring people take drugs safely and protecting people against viruses like Hepatitis C.
"We are targeting more people and offering more options to get out of the drugs lifestyle, not just waiting for people to come to us."
Safer Leeds is the city's drugs and crime reduction partnership, made up of agencies including Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Police, NHS leeds, West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and West Yorkshire Police Authority.
Deaths on the increase
DRUG deaths in Leeds and Wakefield have increased in recent years according to new figures obtained by the YEP.
In 2006, there were 16 deaths from drugs overdoses recorded by the area's coroner.
The following year that increased to 26 and fell slightly to 23 last year.
Seventeen people died of heroin use last year and seven from cocaine abuse.
New figures also reveal the number of cocaine users is rising in Leeds – and that a quarter of 16 to 24-year-old men in Yorkshire had used cannabis in the previous year.
Despite the high number of deaths from hard drugs, it is the continuing growth of cannabis farms – and the strength of cannabis on our streets – which is worrying police and occupying the vast majority of resources.
Bryan Dent is the senior drugs officer at West Yorkshire Police.
He told the YEP the strength of cannabis being sold in Leeds and West Yorkshire was of 22 per cent potency.
He said his drugs squads raided 170 cannabis farms in the region last year, and 55 so far this year.
"West Yorkshire is geared toward attacking the supply chain," he said.
"There is a huge proliferation of cannabis farms and are worrying trends.
"There is no such thing as a harmless drug."
Mr Dent said he was "content" that cannabis has now been reclassified as a class B drug after previously being downgraded by the Government.
Figures obtained by the YEP also show that in 2007, there were 580 people in Leeds claiming incapacity and disability allowance because of drug dependency.
The figures for Wakefield and Kirklees were 220 and 230.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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