Shock tactics

"Drive on drugs and you can really lose it - your licence, your limbs, your career."

This is the harsh message, backed by a series of harrowing posters, behind London's first major campaign against drug-driving.

Launched today, it features images of motorists who lost limbs in drug-related car accidents, and aims to shock people away from mixing narcotics and driving over Christmas.

Devised by the London Drug Policy Forum, the campaign highlights a dramatic rise in road deaths connected to drug-driving.

Latest figures from the RAC Foundation reveal 18 per cent of people killed in road accidents were found to have traces of illegal drugs in their bodies. That is a sixfold increase since 1988.

Stimulants such as ecstacy, cocaine and amphetamine increase risk-taking behaviour and inability to gauge distance. Most accidents happen at night when pubs and clubs close.

Today the organisers of the campaign said they aimed to make drug-driving as unacceptable as drink-driving.

Roger Daily-Hunt, chairman of the forum, said: "It is now recognised as being wholly unacceptable to drive while under the influence of alcohol. This campaign aims to place drug-driving in that category."

The campaign was welcomed by safety groups, including Brake, whose chief executive Mary Williams said: "It is high time we had not only a London campaign, but a properlyfunded national campaign against drugdriving. It is a woeful failure on the part of government when the dangers are there for all to see."

The RAC called on the Government to launch its own awareness initiative. "Young people are particularly likely to take ecstasy or cannabis and then drive, sometimes without realising the dangers," said a spokesman.

Nine out of 10 drivers support the introduction of devices to test for drugs. The police could have the so-called "drugalysers" within two years.