What started out as a shared activity with two or three friends was soon costing him 20 a day. And after about four weeks, he started using heroin as a way to come down. "I ended up dealing to fund my habit," he says (see box).
Robert is one of a growing number of young people believed to be experimenting with crack cocaine. British Crime Survey figures show that about 25,000 16- to 24-year-olds used the drug in 2003-04, roughly the same number who had tried heroin. But there is evidence that such official figures may underestimate the size of the problem.
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