THE FOREST of Dean is flooded with heroin. The drug is widely available and there are more registered addicts in the district than the rest of Gloucestershire put together.

Those are the stark facts.

The drug is in schools, youth groups, pubs and clubs.

It is now being sold openly on street corners, often in blatant view of watching closed circuit television cameras.

To fund the habit many youngsters are resorting to crime. Senior police officers admit the drug craze is probably responsible for most of the local cases of burglary and shoplifting.

There has been an on-going battle to beat the menace. In one four week period the police successfully dealt with 10 dealers – and, they say, there will be more in the future.

But in one town, Cinderford, a young mother wants the problem out in the open.

She wants a drugs support project to be set up immediately – but says her offer to help was turned down by parents who feared their children would lose their jobs and be eyed with suspicion and victimised by the community.

She told the Review: "This is a terrible shame. I wish everyone could get a better understanding and a little tolerance for those who are addicted but who want to stop, those who have never hurt anyone or stolen, or encouraged others to take drugs. Those – and they are the majority – who have tried heroin but can't control it."

Cinderford is recognised as having the biggest problem locally, though the police say there are now drugs in all 39 parishes in the district.

In a plea for a greater understanding of the problems of addiction the mother says it is all too easy to scoff at the youngsters who had mostly succumbed to peer pressure before becoming hooked.

They were often lovely youngsters from good, loving homes.

"I am sure the majority of youngsters who have started using heroin in the last two years are begging for help and seriously want to quit, but there is not enough help available," she says.

A drugs support project, she argues, would enable families to be taught how to help to detox their loved ones and give them backing to help cure addiction at home.

She says she was angered by those addicts who were also dealers, pushing drugs on to others in order to pay for their habit. There was also a problem with addicts who robbed, stole and mugged people to pay for their habit.

"The majority of those were already that way inclined even before their habit took over," she says.

She argues that often heroin addicts get little pleasure from the drug.

"There is an agonising pain to go through after missing that first fix. Heroin addicts take the drug to be able to function normally ... it's just to ease the pain in the end," she says.