When the Government announced that heroin use was growing in rural areas and reaching epidemic proportions among teenagers, the universal reaction in Oxfordshire was: "Tell us something we don't already know."

Heroin is already well on the way to replacing ecstasy as the leading fashionable drug among the youth of Oxfordshire.

Drugs counsellors have been warning for three years that its use is spiralling out of control. Police seizures are up by as much as 50 per cent. And it seems almost every burglar or thief who appears at Oxford Crown Court blames his or her crimes on drug addiction.

The village of Wheatley achieved notoriety last year when youths as young as 15 were seen buying drugs and taking them in the public toilets. Today, dealers peddling cheap, high-purity heroin, use cars and mobile phones to deliver on the move to every corner of the county. Prices start from as little as £5 a bag.

As this week's Home Office study reveals, addicts are no longer restricted to grimy council estates.

Sarah Pethybridge, drugs counsellor with the Oxford-based Libra Project, said: "There has been a snowballing of heroin use in Oxfordshire over the last four years and we are now seeing the snowball at its height.

"There are literally hundreds of families involved and they are quite ordinary families with quite ordinary problems. There are kids from pretty Garsington or Lambourn, and their parents are completely shell-shocked when they find out. We talk to 17-year-olds who have been taking it for two years." Det Insp Ian Robinson, head of Thames Valley Police's drugs strategy unit, added: "We have seen an astronomical leap in the amount of heroin seized. It is available in every village if you know where to go."

Unlike in the 1980s, when heroin was associated with junkies using HIV-infected needles, most heroin these days is smoked - known as "chasing the dragon".

The dealers appear to have secured a reliable supply of heroin, probably from south-west Asia, and are selling it as a "recreational" drug.

But Sarah Pethybridge warns: "Almost everyone who experiments with heroin ends up an addict. If you play with this one you are going to be so sorry." People are so shocked WORK: Insp Whitaker BICESTER is typical of small towns referred to in the Home Office report.

Police have noticed a marked increase in the number of heroin seizures. One in three of all arrests is directly related to drugs.

Insp David Whitaker said: "Heroin appears to be very cheap and very readily available. Whenever we arrest a dealer another one appears.

"I do not think Bicester is different from any other town of its size in Oxfordshire, and there is not a village in Britain that has not been affected by drugs."

He added: "I think there is a lot of ignorance locally about the availability of heroin. We have done a lot of work on publicity but it still seems to shock people when they find out the extent of the problem." THE BLEAK FACTS

Police seizures of heroin doubled in 1995-96 and increased by another 13 per cent last year before levelling out

The average age of users contacting help services is 25, with a range of 16 to 48. The youngest was 14

Over the past two years, the number of Oxfordshire heroin users seeking help was up by 12 per cent

Information from the Regional Drug Misuse Database

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