PRESSURE was growing on the Home Secretary Jack Straw today to order a full scale inquiry into Britain's drugs culture and consider legalising the trade following the murder of Blackburn youngster Dillon Hull.

The calls came in the wake of the five-year-old's shooting in a crime police believe was connected to the drugs trade.

Dillon had moved from Blackburn to Bolton just a few months before being gunned down as he walked outside his home with stepfather John Bates, 28.

It has also emerged that Dillon's brother Codie was born three weeks ago with an addiction to heroin.

A judge had previously warned the boy's mother, Jane, who has a large Blackburn family, to keep Dillon away from the drugs culture. Brian Iddon, Labour MP for Bolton South East, has now called for a Royal Commission to probe the problem.

He is echoing demands by left-wing Labour MP for Newport West Paul Flynn for the Government to at least consider legalising the drugs trade.

Mr Iddon spoke out as Government plans for a new drugs czar to co-ordinate the anti-drugs effort came under fire from an American expert.

The drugs czar idea was borrowed from the US. But Professor Arnold Trebach, president of the Washington-based independent Drug Policy Foundation, said the scheme had failed in America.

"Our drugs czar is like a piece of British Royalty - honoured but with no power," he said.

But Nigel Evans, Tory MP for Ribble Valley and co-chairman of the All-Party Drugs Mis-Use Group, has written to the Prime Minister urging him to ignore pleas from Labour MPs for drugs to be decriminalised. "More deaths and wrecked lives would be the price of embarking on an experiment doomed to fail," Mr Evans warned.

Mr Iddon called for a Royal Commission to look into the whole drugs problem, but warned that the Government had "backed off" considering the decriminalisation of drugs.

"There are a number of people on the Labour benches now who want an honest, open discussion about the drugs problem.

"The word decriminalisation' has got to be part of that discussion, in my opinion.

"We need a Royal Commission on drugs. We need to get into the whole debate about the decriminalisation of drugs," he said.

His controversial view was denounced by the police, who insisted their anti-drugs strategy was working and the number of drug-related crimes was falling.

Social services in Bolton are so concerned about the growing number of pregnant heroin addicts that they have recommended the local health trust appoint a drugs liaison midwife.

Blackburn MP and Home Secretary Jack Straw is on a foreign family holiday and was unavailable for comment today.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.