POLICE are already preparing to act on information coming into the Shop a Pusher hotline, just two weeks after its re-launch.

DS Alan Strike of the Wiltshire Police intelligence unit has revealed that seven callers have already contacted the Gazette & Herald's drugs hotline since its re-launch on April 14, and that a number of those calls are already showing the potential for further investigation.

"We have been very encouraged by the response so far," said DS Strike.

"And I am confident that we will be moving forward with some of the information that has already been passed on to us via the hotline.

"But we still want more people to call and pass on what they know."

DS Strike said any member of the public who believes they have seen drugs activity while out and about socialising, or even in their own street, should call the hotline.

"Let us act on it, to stamp out drug pushing," he said.

The Gazette and Herald first launched the Shop a Pusher campaign in 2001 as a week-long initiative, but the confidential hotline attracted such a large volume of calls that the scheme was extended and eventually spanned more than a year, leading to a number of successful prosecutions.

Liaising directly with the divisional intelligence unit, based at Melksham Police HQ, and the division's proactive crime fighting team, Shop a Pusher also has a new hotline number (01249) 449694.

DS Strike explained that all information coming into the hotline is screened against specific criteria.

"Our first step is to check names and addresses given on the phone line for previous convictions," he said.

"We also try hard to weed out calls that may have a malicious angle ie those from people who are just trying to get people they have a grudge against, in trouble. We obviously work very hard to prevent this.

"If a caller should leave his or her number on the phone line, because they don't mind talking to us further, we would also ring them back to make sure we had all the relevant information they could provide us with."

Ideally, police would like callers to tell them who, what, where and when someone was pushing drugs.

DS Strike added: "Our proactive team has many different, very effective methods of gathering information to take drug dealers off our streets."

"We want would-be callers to know that if they have valid information, we will use it wisely.

"The police force's job is to make the lives of drug pushers as difficult as possible. Drugs are a real problem in Wiltshire and we are worried about how easy it is becoming to get hold of cocaine and crack.

"We would ask to the public to do all they can in helping us and they can do just that by phoning the Shop a Pusher hotline."