IN response to the young person who wrote to your paper with concerns over the increased drugs problem in our town (Ledbury Reporter, January 2), I too am worried and angry that children are being preyed upon by heroin dealers and that some are as young as 15.

I agree that something needs to be done to help to protect them from the awful way of life that drug use brings, turning healthy lads and pretty girls into little old men and haggard looking women before they've hardly had any life at all.

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that, to enable them to fund their habit, these youngsters resort to theft, some from local shops, but mostly they steal from their families homes.

Then, of course, these 'goods' have to be sold and who do you think their customers are?

They are people who openly condemn the 'druggies' in public, but will readily buy these stolen goods for peanuts, given the chance, without, I may add any thought of how much hurt the families of these people are going through.

As far as I'm concerned those people who buy things on the cheap from these youngsters are as bad as, if not worse, than the heroin dealers themselves and that they are as good as injecting the drugs into the kids' arms for them.

I don't pretend to have all the answers to this huge problem but I think we should all be a bit more responsible in trying to help these poor youngsters and their families, who must be going through hell.

If we are ever offered a 'bargain' we should think about where it came from and what the consequences could be if we bought it.

I know that I could never have the death of a child on my conscience knowing he'd died using drugs brought by my money. Could you?

MRS PAULINE PREEDY, Belle Orchard Close, Ledbury.