Squaddies fighting drugs war

Who would have thought that the front line of Britain's drug defences is our own soldiers in Afghanistan?

Apparently 90 per cent of the heroin on the streets of Britain comes directly from Helmand province. The Taleban have been bankrolled by the poppy-growers of Afghanistan for years and UK soldiers will be risking their lives to help eradicate the latest harvest. But, despite years of trying to block the heroin route from the east, no amount of preventative measures has actually worked.

It is ironic that some British military families have to wait months for news of their loved ones in Afghanistan to arrive on their doormat, yet heroin is transported to the UK regularly and with extreme efficiency.

Heroin has supported too many wars for too many years in recent history. Warlords have been financing their causes for centuries on the back of the poppy trade.

During the Vietnam War, heroin was being brought back to the US in the coffins of dead soldiers and the drug was being traded for weapons with American businessmen.

Opium and our small island have had a long and turbulent history; it was the backbone of the British Empire when trade routes were first open from the east.

In the late 20th century, heroin was not widely available to the masses. It was the drug of hippies and bohemians, but that was about to change.

In 1979, when the Shah of Iran was overthrown by the ayatollahs, British businessmen could not get their money out of Iran and they took heroin instead.

This was the year Margaret Thatcher came to power and reduced the number of security and customs officials on the docks and around our coasts. Heroin on the move from Iran combined with vulnerable ports created a deathly recipe and the UK learnt the true nature of the war poppy.

When news of the shah's downfall hit our new bulletins in Glasgow, not many people paid attention. They never realised the repercussions of the political power swing in Iran. People didn't care what was happening thousands of miles away in some far-flung Muslim-dominated country.

That was until parents woke up to their kids lying dead on their beds with a needle in their arm. I was there when the first teenager in our community was found dead in the Calton in 1980; parents back then just couldn't fathom how this strange, deadly powder was killing their children.

In the early 1980s, heroin swept through the inner cities of the UK. Deaths from the drug multiplied overnight. Since then, the heroin problem in the UK has exploded and the sheer number of heroin addicts who have died or maintained their habit has greatly increased.

No amount of successful drug swoops where millions of pounds of heroin have been seized has ever stemmed the problem. Drug addicts in Scotland have never given up the needle due to lack of supply: there will always be a supply.

I have personally known at least 20 people who died because of heroin and watched many close friends live in devastation due to their heinous addiction. My brother Jim became addicted in the 1980s and my cousin Sammy died from infected heroin in 2000.

I still firmly believe the only way to control the drug problem in the UK is to introduce a programme that allows doctors to supply heroin to the most severe addicts. This in turn would help the women who turn to prostitution to provide for their habit. It would also cut out most of the dealers who prey on addicts, and drug-related crime would fall dramatically. This programme has worked in other countries.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, there are poppy-growers who have our addicts in mind as they protect their precious crops and the Taleban will be there to make sure their harvest comes to fruit.

Our own soldiers will be on the front line, trying to get to the bottom of the drug chain. This will make them deeply unpopular with local Afghan farmers who depend on the trade to keep themselves alive in a war-torn country that has no real infrastructure.

Poppy production, which is the main source of income for Afghanistan's 28,000 farmers, has increased from 4,000 tonnes in 2005 to more than 8,000 tonnes last year.

The poppy growers have one more reason not to pledge allegiance to the fight against insurgency. They will err on the side of profit and this in turn will put more guns in the hands of the enemy.

And we all suspected this was a war about oil…

Farming for sexual compliments

DAVID Beckham posed in his pants for Giorgio Armani and looked smoulderingly sexy. Not many men could face such scrutiny in the front-bottom pants' area and David looked like he had three baking potatoes down there. I know this 'cause I stared at it a lot.

His lip-synching songstress wife Victoria went on record saying that David possesses "a tractor exhaust pipe" in his pants.

I don't see why she felt the need to tell us, but I am sure she is proud of him. Pity it never seems to put a smile on her surly face.

So, if farming equipment euphemisms are the latest sexual compliments then my husband's got a sturdy paddock, fine milking apparatus and you should see his shredding machine!

It all brings a whole new meaning to the Wurzles' I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester song as far as I am concerned.

No hesitation, repetition, deviation – oh no!

TONIGHT, I am on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.

It is the hardest and scariest show to appear on. You have to talk for one minute on a given subject without deviation, repetition or hesitation – that sounds like something I could easily do, as I am known for my chatting abilities.

But I talk utter rubbish, my mouth babbles independently – think frenzied hyperactive toddler trying to explain fairies whilst hopping on one leg and you get the picture.

At one point, I heard myself say: "Owls are better kissers than meerkats." I hope that bit gets edited out.

The other guests were so cool and funny. Giles Brandreth is an expert and amazing words came streaming out of his posh mouth … I said words that haven't even been invented yet.

I still have night sweats thinking about it.

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