'Places needed for young addicts'

England has 20 full-time programmes for under-18s, but 3,000 for adults

England has too few residential treatment centres for young drug addicts, a former top government adviser on drugs has said.

Mike Trace, who was deputy to former drug tsar Keith Helliwell, said some addicts could only be treated if they were taken out of their neighbourhoods.

But he said this was rarely possible because there were only 20 places available in England for under-18s.

The government says community-based treatment is better for young people.

Temptation

Mr Trace said: "In the early stages of treatment, nobody is absolutely convinced they want to change their lifestyles, so they're always subject to temptation.

"If you're living on a council estate in south London, where there's a dealer on every street corner, the chances of you continuing your treatment, complying with it, and keeping your will-power are fairly slim.

"That's why residential projects are set up as they are. They tend to be well away from drug-dealing areas and keep people in the early stages of treatment quite isolated from temptation."

"The fact that we just have no services and no options in the UK is quite damning."

In comparison to the 20 full-time residential places in England for under-18s, there are 3,000 places for adults.

Investment doubled

The Department of Health said the Government had more than doubled its investment in drugs treatment since 2001.

A spokesman said that this year nearly £400m of central government cash is being made available, £25m of which is being channelled into treating under-18s.

Tom Aldridge of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse said treating young people in their communities was more effective than taking them away to isolated residential rehab centres:

"Whilst it may be for them - in their adult years - a good thing to get out of their areas, what we have found talking to young people who have been to residential services is exactly the opposite.

"They say that they've gone into a residential service, that they've come off drugs or they've got control of their drugs, and then gone back to wherever they came from without any resilience, without any protective factors, and started using again."