| Drug addict's face used in campaign
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A hard-hitting anti-drug campaign showing the gaunt features of a heroin addict is being launched.
The campaign centres on the face of Roseanne Holland who was 29 when she first became hooked on heroin.
It uses a series of police mug shots taken in the US over eight years which show the affect the drug has on her appearance. The last image shows her almost unrecognisable with sunken cheeks and soulless dead eyes.
Ms Holland died from an overdose shortly after the last picture was taken.
The advert will be used in 16 London boroughs identified as having the worst drug problems.
Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur said: "These photographs starkly illustrate the physical effects drugs have on people over a relatively brief period of time".
Commander Stephen James, of the Yard's specialist crime directorate, said: "The images show the horrors of addiction to crack cocaine and heroin. There are many thousands of families who have had to deal with these in private and we are saying here is the truth - this is what drugs do to you."
He said the crack cocaine problem was worse in London then elsewhere in the UK because it was in the capital that it first arrived in the late 1980s. It was therefore a "more embedded" problem in London.
Although pictures are taken of people arrested in Britain, senior officers were forced to look to the US for drug case studies because of issues of confidentiality.
- ITV
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Before and after: Pictures show how an addict's face deteriorated
- BBC | |
