Award on the cards

In the drugs version of the Top Trumps game, heroin is the killer card. On every comparator it rates the maximum seven. If you are dealt it, you will struggle to win the game. If you get the crack card as well, you have probably lost. Any parallels with real life are intentional.

Knockout Drugs, created by Bedfordshire drug action team (DAT) - with a nod to Top Trumps, the popular children's card game - has just been recognised by Frank, the government's drug education campaign, winning the highest accolade at the first Frank awards for innovation. Knockout Drugs should be available in eastern region by mid-December.

The game has 24 cards - 23 representing different types of drugs and one for binge drinking. Each has a cartoon character - in Japanese computer-graphics style - that demonstrates an effect of the drug. For instance, ketamine, an anaesthetic (abused for its out-of-body effect), has a sleepy character wearing a nightcap.

Like a normal Top Trumps pack - with cars or Lord of the Rings characters on - each card lists the vital statistics on which the card's gaming value is based. In this case: class of drug (A, B etc), mental damage, phys ical damage, possession (ie legal sanction/likely sentence), supply (ditto), and addictiveness. The difference is that in this game, unlike the original, the lowest figure wins.

Tests with young people in Bedfordshire found that they played confidently within five minutes, says DAT community development officer James Morley, who had the idea for the cards. He adds: "After 20 minutes they were starting to say things like, 'I can't win - I've got the crack card and the heroin card and they're really bad.' The message was getting across."

But are the kids are tempted to play the game the usual way round? Carly, one of the young people who helped to test the cards, admits playing it to score high. "It's a really good game," she says. "I won three times. It helps to have heroin or crack - they're the strongest."

But she continues: "It's really informative. I walked out knowing a lot more about drugs than when I walked in - like learning the street names, so if you're offered something, you know what it is."

Does she think there is a danger of sending the wrong message? No. There's always someone who'll take it wrong, but overall I think it is positive."

Discussions are under way to make the cards available nationwide and to create a version for playing on the internet and on G3 mobile phones.

www.drugs.gov.uk/Campaign/Awards