A FORMER North-East police chief has criticised the Government over the issue of drug abuse.

Keith Hellawell, the Government's Drug Tsar for three years until 2001, said ministers appear to have turned their backs on drug problems.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at the weekend that the Government had allowed the problem to go "off the radar".

Mr Hellawell, who quit his role three years ago over plans to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous drug, said the issue was no longer the priority it once was.

"What we are seeing is that drugs have gone off the radar of the Labour Government. They came in in 1997 with this as part of their manifesto," he said.

"Now you never hear anything about it. It is as if they are turning their back on it, closing their eyes to it, believing that perhaps it will go away, but it doesn't."

Mr Hellawell, who became one of the youngest chief constables in Britain when he took over Cleveland Police in 1990, said drugs caused pain, and damage "right across the spectrum of our society". But he said that ministers were pushing the issue "into the long grass".

His comments came after police revealed yesterday that children as young as four were being used as drugs couriers in Cheltenham.

Mr Hellawell told Today that drug dealers were deliberately targeting children under the age of criminal responsibility who could not be prosecuted.

"Clearly, the police need to look at ways in which they can prosecute those who are getting involved in this," he said.

"Unless society and unless Government actually gives a much stronger message than it's doing at the moment about drugs, then this sort of thing is just going to spread."