BY CHIEF CONSTABLE ELIZABETH NEVILLE: THE publicity in the Gazette last week about the proposed closure of the drugs unit in Melksham will have made many people, especially parents, very concerned, if there were any truth that Wiltshire Police was about to redeploy its drug intelligence and enforcement squad.

This is simply not the case. Hard drugs (known as Class A drugs) and crime are strongly linked.

Tackling them both is the key to combating the cycle of drug dependency and criminal activity that ruins lives and wrecks communities. We are as committed now as we have ever been to cracking this evil trade.

How do we do this? We want to reduce the availability of Class A drugs. We want to disrupt and reduce supply, and catch dealers.

At the same time, we want to reduce the demand for drugs. We try to achieve this by working with our partner agencies on treatment and harm minimisation programmes for drug abusers, as well as drugs education for young people and their parents and carers.

In this year's Policing Plan, we are monitoring our performance by collecting information on the number of offenders dealt with for supplying Class A drugs, particularly heroin and cocaine.

We are referring people we have arrested who have a drugs problem to drug treatment programmes. We are working hard with the Drug Action Teams and other partners on harm reduction education.

But our strong focus is on arresting and prosecuting dealers and traffickers of Class A drugs.

We know how important this is because in 2001, as part of a countywide crime survey, the Wiltshire public stated their main concern was the supply of hard drugs, with the Swindon public voting this issue as their second concern. We do this by gathering intelligence, which we use to target offenders and carry out drugs raids and arrests.

The police officers and other staff who already carry out this role will continue to do so.

But we are going to get better at it and, in order to do so, we will change some of the ways in which we work.

We are going to use the National Intelligence Model, which was developed by the police, for the police.

It is a process which will improve the way that intelligence is gathered and analysed in order to drive enforcement. Ultimately it will make us even more effective than we are already.

If you are a drug dealer in Wiltshire, there is a very strong likelihood that we already know who you are and it's only a matter of time before that early morning call.

Until then, maybe you can sleep easy.

But be afraid. Be very afraid.