DAMNING statistics revealed this week that Britain has the highest number of child drug users in Europe.

And while many may assume the problems are confined to inner city communities, the Cotswolds certainly is not immune to this trend.

Small market towns like Malmesbury, Bourton-on-the-Water, Tetbury and Cirencester are all affected.

In our paper this week we have stories which include a former Bourton man jailed for five years for dealing heroin on the streets of Cirencester.

The thoughtlessness of hard drugs users is shown even more graphically in our story of used syringes ditched in a hedge by a residential area.

They were found by local children, one of whom now faces an anxious wait of three months before he finds out whether he has been infected with potentially serious viruses or diseases.

Children are becoming increasingly exposed to drug use and drug paraphenalia but one can't help wondering if the messages aimed at educating young people agaiunst the horrors of drug use are hard enough.

So is there more that could be done. The public have become so used to hearing stories of drug use that exclusions from school because of it rarely make the headlines.

In recent years we have seen stark images that show the true horrors of drug abuse like the hunched up photos of Rachel Whitear with a needle still in her arm.

Perhaps more publicity of this sort would have the desired effect and shock young people into resisting peer pressure and always saying no.