POLICE in Hampshire are making an average of more than seven drugs seizures every day.

Heroin, cocaine, crack, amphetamines, Ecstasy and cannabis with a street value running into hundreds of pounds are being recovered each week.

Officers say the figures reflect the fact that parts of the county are "awash with drugs".

Home Office statistics show drug seizures in Hampshire have risen 600 per cent in the past decade with 2,890 drug busts made in 2002, the latest figures available. That compares with 370 seizures in 1992.

Cannabis was seized most often, on 2,010 occasions, followed by Ecstasy (250), amphetamines (210), heroin (200), cocaine (140) and crack (80).

Hampshire performed well in detecting drug offences with 2,750 people convicted in 2002 - the ninth highest total of England's 39 police forces.

But police say the number of drugs busts reflects the amount of illegal narcotics circulating in Hampshire.

Det Con Annie Hodge, of Southampton's drugs intelligence team, described parts of the city as being awash with drugs.

"There is an extremely bad problem with drugs in Southampton. In parts of the city we are awash with them.

"We carry out drug busts every week and regularly recover class A drugs with a street value of £1,000.

"I don't think the downgrading of cannabis has helped at all because people are buying that drug and being offered others. I would say that the rise in the number of seizures we do does reflect the increase in the drug problem. We do need more investment in the area as 80 per cent of all intelligence received by police is drugs-related."

Det Con Hodge added that intelligence showed drugs coming into the city came from a variety of locations including the Caribbean and eastern Europe.

Earlier this month the Daily Echo reported how Southampton police recovered one of the biggest Ecstasy hauls in recent years during a swoop in the city.

Broderick Donkin, 38, from Millbrook was sentenced to three years in prison after police found 2,100 tablets with a street value of over £8,000 that he had stashed at two warehouses in the city.

A spokeswoman for Drugscope, an independent centre of expertise in drug trends, said the figures although positive, did illustrate the size of the market.

She said: "It is right that the police should be targeting the supply of drugs in this way and congratulations should go to Hampshire police for their efforts.

"It shows a good amount of intelligence information being used by officers who are going further up the drugs chain and getting the big guys further up the line.

"We have certainly had more large drugs seizures across the country in recent times but obviously the flip side of this is that it shows how big the market actually is.

"Recent reports show that the price of drugs is coming down which is a good indicator that, unfortunately, there are more of them circulating - the price goes up if supply is in short demand."

The Daily Echo reported how Hampshire teenager Jack Elliott from Curdridge paid just £1.50 for Ecstasy tablets that killed him.

The 17-year-old had the highest ever recorded level of Ecstasy in his system when he died.