A GROUP of coroners made an unprecedented appeal for action yesterday to tackle a "terrifying" escalation in drug -related deaths. Warnings about the dangers of drug abuse were "falling on deaf ears", they said, and the public was becoming immune to the tragedy. Drug takers were so cavalier that even the deaths of relatives or friends failed to persuade them to give up hard drugs such as heroin, methadone and ecstasy.
The appeal was issued by four northern coroners but reflected worries throughout the country.
According to Home Office figures, the number of deaths from drug misuse and glue-sniffing more than trebled in the 10 years to 1994. There were 133 deaths in 1984 compared to 489 a decade later.
The coroners - Howard McCann, Andre Rebello, Anne Hind and George Howson - said drugs killed two or three people in Lancashire each week. They believed the problem was a national one which needed a co-ordinated approach.
Mr Rebello, coroner for east Lancashire, said: "It is like a war out there and all strata of society are taking huge casualties.
"The irony is that the fatalities we deal with represent only the tip of the iceberg. We see just the few the paramedics don't get to in time."
Mr McCann said drug takers were "quite simply playing Russian roulette with their lives".
He added: "I see some of them attending the inquests on their friends. They listen to the evidence, they hear the awful way that person has come to die, and then they go away and take more drugs themselves."
Mrs Hind, deputy coroner for Blackpool and the Fylde, was dismayed that over the past five years the public's response to drug deaths had generally been apathetic.
"We have lost the power to shock them," she said. "At one time we were appalled when there was a drugs death but now they are commonplace."
She estimated that in the past year, 30 per cent of the 120 inquests in Blackpool had been drug -related. "That is a terrifying statistic."
Two weeks ago she held an inquest on a 17-year-old who died of a morphine overdose.
"A friend was giving evidence and he said the two of them were spending the evening in. They went out for a four-pack and a bag of heroin," Mrs Hind said.
"They came home, opened the drinks and each injected himself. That was it. That was their evening. It's the casual acceptance that it might kill them which I find so shocking.
"At inquests we try to be graphic. We try to shock. We go through how victims go into a coma, ending up perhaps choking on their own vomit in squalid circumstances and with no dignity.
"All the time you're looking at a row of people whose pupils are dilated. It's heartbreaking."
The coroners admitted that they had no solution to the problem, and wanted to remain independent of political debate on the issue.
"We just want to raise public awareness so that hopefully the lives of some of these desperate people can be saved," said Mr McCann.
The Home Office said ministers shared the concern of the coroners. "Tackling drugs misuse is a priority," said a spokesman.
Tony Blair has recently established a Cabinet committee chaired by Ann Taylor, leader of the Commons, to co-ordinate policy on drugs. The Cabinet Office is shortly to advertise for a "supremo" to oversee a national programme against abuse.
"We are looking for a mover and a shaker - someone with a high profile who will be accountable to government", said a Whitehall official. "We want someone who can co-ordinate all action against drugs, from education and prevention to customs and seizures."
The Government yesterday lifted a threat to Customs jobs after warnings that it could hamper the war against drug pushers.
Ministers overturned plans to cut 300 frontier anti-smuggling officers and increased by £50 million the service's target for the value of drug seizures this year.
Mrs Taylor said: "This demonstrates our commitment to tackling drugs."
