When a promising young footballer died recently of a heroin overdose, it brought back painful memories for one County Durham mother. She tells Sharon Griffiths how her addict son lost his life, and why she believes that the liberalisation of the cannabis laws was a fatal mistake.

HOW do we prevent our children killing themselves with drugs? Sadly, love is not enough. And the problem is not confined to the mean streets of inner cities, to dysfunctional families without help or hope.

None of us can afford to be smug. None of us is guaranteed to be immune. Drugs are no respecter of class, income, education or intelligence. No family, however secure, however well educated or prosperous can be sure to escape unscathed. Even youngsters with everything to live for, can still succumb, leaving their grieving families baffled and despairing.

Recently, 21-year-old John Courtney, a promising young footballer once hailed as the next Alan Shearer, was found dead of a heroin overdose, the syringe still in his hand.

His family, bravely, released the picture in the hope that would make other youngsters think twice, that it might help save another life.

The image, and the family's pain, struck a chord with one County Durham mother, who knows exactly what they are going through. But she despairs of what parents can do, however fiercely they love their children.

"It seems to me that there is very little that individual parents can do to protect their children when drugs are so cheaply and easily available," she says.

Like John, her son had everything to live for. He was a bright, intelligent boy from a happy middle class family. He was surrounded by love and encouragement. Yet as a teenager, he started experimenting with drugs. In his twenties, he desperately wanted his life back, wanted to come off heroin, went into rehab.

But by the time he was 30, he was dead from an overdose.

His mother still looks for answers, still thinks there might have been something she could have done. But she has absolutely no idea what.

" My son knew of many who had died in this way but that knowledge wasn't enough to save him. I was living in a constant state of fear and dread. I was already doing everything and anything in my power to prevent this happening to my son.

"Any parent who watches their child descend into the bleak and hateful world of drugs is in a living nightmare."

He was a happy boy. "Ironically, it was my son who, at seven years old, persuaded me to give up smoking because he knew how dangerous it was."

But by the time he was in his early teens, he was experimenting with alcohol and cannabis.

"I really think there is something in the genes or their physical make-up, something they are born with that makes them prone to addiction. My other children, brought up in exactly the same way, had no such temptations.

"As a teenager, he took risks. Teenagers do. They think themselves immortal. I tried to put it down to a phase he was going through, that he would grow out of." By the time he was 18, it was already too late.

"He was addicted. And by the time they're addicted, it's too late, they are no longer in any position to make choices. They can't. The drugs change their way of thinking. All their choices and chances in life have gone."

The whole family was affected. Parents at their wits' end, siblings who loved him upset and unable to help.

"The dreadful thing was that even he wasn't happy with the way he was. I'd seen him hammering his hands on the kitchen table, saying 'I don't want to be like this!' He really wanted to change his life and tried many times to overcome his addiction."

Finally, he spent a year in rehab.

"That was a miracle. While he was there, he was like his real self. Every time we went over to visit him, we felt we had him back. He was our son again. We were so hopeful."

He came home for a visit. Within hours, he had found a supply of heroin. He took an overdose, went into a coma and died a week later.

"It's a common pattern," his mother says bleakly. "All his time in rehab meant he'd lost his tolerance for it."

Her son is dead but she is desperately concerned that other families don't have to suffer what they did. And that, to a large extent, means a change in social attitudes.

"My son's drug use started with cannabis. I feel very strongly that when its classification was downgraded, it sent out entirely the wrong message. Cannabis itself is dangerous, more dangerous than it used to be. And it leads on to other, far more dangerous drugs. How on earth do the authorities think that's acceptable?

"Children are starting on them so much younger now, 14 is not unusual. Many are younger. They haven't a clue about what they are doing to themselves and their bodies and brains are less able to cope. Yet we still have a very casual attitude to drugs."

She is also frustrated by the police's inability to put drug dealers out of business.

"Once my son had an overdose in the road. Some neighbours saw him and rang for an ambulance. They knew just what had happened because they knew this house was a centre for drug dealers. Everyone knew. The police knew. Yet no one seemed to be able to stop it and the dealers just kept on selling drugs. How can that happen?

"We should be able to stop the flood of cheap drugs coming into the country. We also need better education, more effective rehab systems and a change in attitudes."

She has picked up the threads of her life, mainly for the sake of her other children. She has helped, and been helped by, a number of charities, trying to find the answers to a growing problem which could touch us all.

She says: "There are now 300,000 people in the UK suffering from heroin addiction. But statistics are easy to ignore when one is not personally involved in the depth of human misery and wasted lives which underlie them.

"In a sense, the parents of children addicted to drugs have already lost their children. Addicts lose their lives long before they die."

Drugs - the facts

* More than a third of British 15-year-olds have tried cannabis.

* Today's cannabis is about ten to 20 times stronger than that used in the 1960s

* There is increasing evidence of a link between cannabis use and psychosis. Research in Holland showed that cannabis was responsible for 13 per cent of new cases of schizophrenia.

* There are 63 deaths a month from heroin.

* Purity and strength of street supplies of heroin vary dramatically - hence so many overdoses.

* Adfam is a charity that deals specifically with the families of addicts. www.adfam.org. Tel: 020-7928 8898.

* Action on Addiction has help on advice on drugs, nicotine and alcohol addiction. www.aona.co.uk. Tel: 020-7793 1011.

* The Compassionate Friends, support for bereaved parents and their families. www.tcf.org.uk. Helpline: 0845 23 23 04.