Pubdate: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 Source: The Sunday Times (UK) Contact: Drug youth is cured in Gulf holiday trap by Nicholas Hellen The parents of a teenager with a ú1,000aweek drug habit saved him from a spiral of addiction by tricking him into visiting the Gulf and then confiscating his passport. He was forced to spend a year in a country where narcotics dealers are beheaded. The teenager, who had been taking drugs including cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana, had no money to buy an air ticket home. He was cowed by local newspaper reports about the punishment meted out to addicts and was cured by the time he returned to Britain. His mother, who took matters into her own hands after despairing of obtaining help from police and health professionals, said this weekend that the family's experience had shown the authorities' "nonjudgmental" approach to drug abuse had failed and should be replaced with harsh new policies. "My son said the British system provides no deterrence. It is an absolute joke," she said. "As a committed Christian, I thank God for those countries which have kept themelves relatively drugfree. I wouldn't want young people I love to face the death penalty, but I have seen how fear works." Her son first experimented with drugs as a sixth former at boarding school, buying supplies on shopping trips to Brighton. By the time he was a firstyear student at Brunel University, his drug habit was out of control. On a typical Saturday night, he snorted cocaine and swallowed up to 12 ecstasy tablets before taking friends to a rave club in a car for which his parents had paid. He lost weight, ran up mobile phone bills of up to ú300 a month and abandoned his studies. At first his mother and Old Etonian father, a senior executive in a multinational oil company who was away for long periods in the Gulf, failed to recognise the cause of his problems. When it was revealed by a member of his circle, his mother started taping his telephone calls and hired a private detective. By then he had turned to drug dealing to fund his habit, working in partnership with a friend he had known since they were at preparatory school together. He would leave the family home in a genteel area of Berkshire to meet other dealers, some of whom carried handguns. His mother was so worried by threats made to him in phone calls that she began sleeping with a loaded shotgun at her side. Finally she decided it was time for drastic action. Her husband flew home from the Gulf and offered their son and his partner in crime a fortnight's beach holiday. The young men accepted and returned with him to the region the next morning. Only after they arrived did they realise it was a trap. "When my husband told them they were going to stay there a lot longer their minds were already clearer," said the teenager's mother, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. "They were angry, but they were also relieved that they no longer had to deal with their problems themselves." The families of both the addicts had agreed a "drugfree" strategy: they would receive limited pocket money, would drink alcohol only available in designated expatriates' hotel bars and would be allowed no girlfriends. They would simply lead a leisurely life on the beach. The oil executive's son failed to find a drugs supplier, then reformed. When after six months his parents travelled to Britain for Christmas, he stayed behind because he could not yet trust himself to resist offers of drugs from friends. Now back home, he is training for a job in retail management. His mother said six in seven young people she knew took drugs. "My son didn't want to give them up until we forced him, and unfortunately the methods used in Britain still rely on people going voluntarily for rehabilitation," she said. "We don't have the stomach and the political will to fight drugs." Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited