The police raids on 17 "crack houses" across the Bradford district, in the biggest Drugs-busting operation of its type in the country, is an excellent use of the existing anti-social behaviour legislation. Although it tied up more than 100 police officers and community support officers, it led to the immediate closure and boarding-up of a number of premises which had been thorns in the side of local communities.

As the man in charge of the operation, Superintendent Dave Oldroyd, rightly said, the people of Bradford are sick and tired of the crime and anti-social behaviour associated with premises used for the taking of drugs and do not want their lives being made a misery by them.

They have been sending out that message to the police, and now the police have responded in a way which sends out the right reciprocal message both to beleaguered residents and to the people whose activities drag down the communities in which they set up shop and present a danger to young people of the area.

They have done a good job. However the ultimate success of this operation, and any others that might follow elsewhere as a result of it, must be judged on what happens next. It will be a test of the Drugs Intervention Programme's ability to wean drugs users (which dealers often are) away from their addiction and keep them on the straight and narrow.

If it fails, they will only drift back to their old ways and the whole process will eventually need to be gone through again.