A FRESH education campaign, with a similar message to the anti drink-driving stance embedded in the 1970s, is needed to teach children that taking class A drugs is "shameful", a meeting has heard.

Calls to make taking hard drugs more socially unacceptable were issued as it emerged North Yorkshire had seen a significant rise in complex child death cases, such as drug-related ones over 2020/21, but due to the numerous factors involved, more analysis was being undertaken to examine why.

In a report to a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council's young people scrutiny committee, the Child Death Overview Panel chair Anita Dobson said over the last year the panel was "mindful of an increase in drug-related deaths".

She said it was thought the rise "may well be an indication of reduced mental wellbeing amongst young people, for which Coronavirus could be a contributing factor" and that the panel would monitor the situation closely.

The concerns follow pledges by North Yorkshire and York's past and present police, fire and crime commissioners to prioritise tackling County Lines drug dealing gangs, which often target children, particularly in Harrogate and Scarborough.

The concerns also follow calls for action following the deaths of children such as 15-year-old Leah Heyes, who died in 2019 after taking MDMA in Northallerton.

An officer told the meeting the council was concentrating on getting support as early as possible for troubled children so "they don't have to rely on substance misuse to manage anxiety or those kind of areas".

He said: "We have seen a number of children dying, sadly, as a result of taking drugs and that similarly to adults, there were many reasons why children start to take drugs."

The meeting heard schools were taking up drug prevention opportunities and a current focus for the authority was to ensure people could access the support on offer.

Councillors were told there had been "a lot of work in educating young people directly."

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