ILLEGAL drugs remain the scourge of our society. The clichd image of drug dealers lurking on every street corner may be an unrealistic one, but recent operations by Wiltshire police prove illicit drugs such as heroin, ecstasy and cocaine are out there and available to buy.

This week a 16-year-old boy was sentenced for buying 40 ecstasy tablets in a cut-price deal. The buy-one-get-one-free concept seems to have infiltrated the criminal fraternity.

This is a worrying trend as where cash-strapped teens were often unable to buy Class A drugs through lack of finance, this latest development will undoubtedly lure easily-influenced victims into substantial habits.

And all this comes at a time when police chiefs are gambling with our future.

Surely one officer dedicated to drugs intelligence cannot be better than three officers in a fully-equipped drugs unit, but Wiltshire police assure us the new arrangements will be better.

We know Wiltshire officers are already overloaded with work, with detectives battling to free themselves from a backlog of labour-intensive inquiries.

By piling up the work and dumping the drugs problem on other officers' doorsteps, the problem will remain as prevalent as ever.