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Town where Everyone has been Tainted by the Scourge of Heroin
Saturday, September 28, 2002
By Paul Kelbie
The Independent

From the top of the town, where families live in neatly laid out cul-de-sacs of quality-built homes with expensive 4x4s and family saloons in the driveways, to the bottom where four out of five terraced houses are boarded up and children play among the derelict buildings, there is a one unifying factor. "What we are seeing is the slow strangulation of a community and way of life," Sandy Wisley, a local doctor, said. "There are just as many addicts living in the nice homes as there are in the council houses. Drugs have no social barriers and often the more money there is, the greater the problem."

Scotland -- The Independent
A way of life that has lasted 400 years in Fraserburgh, in north-east Scotland, is in danger of sinking under a drugs problem that has turned the wealthy fishing community into the heroin capital of Britain.

For the past five years, the fisherfolk of Fraserburgh have seen their once-prosperous town ravaged by a narcotics trade that has claimed the lives of more than 150 people and blighted the existence of countless others among the 21,000 who live in the area.

Police believe more than one in five of the adults is involved with drugs. With the United Nations this week reporting a 1,400 per cent increase in Afghanistan's opium crop, there is every chance that heroin from there will find its way to the villages on this North Sea coast.

The sight this week of drugs squad officers in blue overalls and masks, sifting through the belongings of yet another suspected dealer has become a familiar one here. A week-long series of raids by officers from Grampian Police has resulted in the seizure of almost £100,000 worth of heroin, to add to the £5.6m worth of heroin and crack cocaine already recovered by the force this year. But the officers admit that they are simply scratching the surface.

"We are moving to a more intelligence-led policing strategy and targeting the dealers rather than the users," said Detective Inspector Gerry Cronin, who was in charge of last week's operation. "But it is difficult to quantify our success because we don't know how much there is out there."
(More: The Independent News Source)
2002 © Independent Digital (UK), Ltd.

Dan