Cocaine use‘rife’on island, claims councillor

AN Anglesey councillor has said that cocaine use on the island is getting out of control.

Nicola Roberts (pictured right) said use of the Class A drug has now become more rife than heroin abuse.

The Llangefni representative said she had noticed people using the narcotic when she took her family out for meals in local pubs.

Cllr Roberts was speaking as Police Commissioner Arfon Jones came to the island to meet councillors to discuss his plan to ramp up the crackdown on drugs gangs and county lines dealers.

She said: “The problems at the beginning of my term (as councillor in 2013) seemed to a number of heroin users on the street, which in itself was quite visible. By now I feel that has come down dramatically in Llangefni but what is noticeable, when going out for a meal with family or for a drink, is the use of drugs in local pubs.

“I couldn’t explain it in any other terms but that it’s rife, you can’t go out to many places these days without witnessing it in some form.

“How is this being tackled? I know there have been projects in Holyhead but I’m not sure the same can be said for elsewhere.”

Supt Richie Green said: “What we’ve seen over the past year, especially on Anglesey and Bangor, is a rise in cocaine use rather than heroin.

“But as part of the Christmas period crackdown, for the first time we found cocaine was more prevalent than cannabis.

“Most, if not all of those (found having taken cannabis) were in employment, but this is what’s keeping county lines going. It’s not always who you’d suspect, that’s why you may not see it on the streets. But how do you stop it?

“The vast majority of pubs are working very closely with us in this regard, but we will close them down if not.”

Commissioner Jones said: “We won’t necessarily be able to stop the supply while the demand is still there. We need to tackle demand, there are ways we can do that, but we also need the government to look at this problem.”