A Teesside town has been chosen to host a national anti- drugs event.

Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Office Minister responsible for the Government's drugs policy, will speak at the conference, being staged in Middlesbrough by Cleveland Police Authority.

With backing from Safe in Teesside and other local agencies, it will take place in April.

It follows a hard-hitting report, presented to the authority last year, which highlighted major concerns over the growing impact of drugs-related crime, as well as health and social damage.

Among its conclusions were that attempts to restrict the availability of drugs have failed everywhere, conventional punishments and convictions have had little effect, and that if prohibition does not work, either the consequences have to be accepted or an alternative found.

Councillor Ian Jeffrey, the authority's lead member on drugs issues, said: "We know only too well from our experience in the Cleveland force that drug usage and distribution lie at the heart of not only a huge amount of crime, but have a devastating effect on people's lives.

"The report underlined the scale of the challenge - for example the estimate that 36,000 people living locally use drugs every month and the annual total for heroin-addicted babies born in the force area is expected to reach 50 in the near future."

Mo Mowlam, who has acknowledged that a "just say no" policy does not work, has called for an open debate on the drugs problem.

The theme of the conference will be to learn from the experiences of others in the UK and abroad to come up with viable solutions.