The mother of a teenage heroin victim today called for cannabis to be legalised.

Thelma Pickard said the move would free more police for the fight against hard drugs.

Her daughter Amy, 17, remains in a coma six months after being injected with heroin in public toilets in Hastings town centre, ten yards from a police office.

Amy was pregnant but lost her baby.

Her boyfriend, Michael Morfee, 22, died last month in the same Harold Place toilets after a heroin overdose.

Mrs Pickard, 48, of Sandown Road, Hastings, is now channelling her energies into educating people about the evils of heroin, which she claims is a threat to every child.

She wants more police patrolling the streets but says that is not possible while their resources are constantly stretched dealing with cannabis users.

She said: "The police are under-funded and under-resourced without having to deal with cannabis.

"They should be able to come down harder on the real killers, the people who peddle heroin and other Class A drugs.

"They are the ones that can strike at anyone, whether you be rich, poor, unemployed, but especially the young, like my Amy and Michael.

"The Government ought to say to the police: 'Leave cannabis alone so you can get on with getting the hard stuff, such as the needles, off the streets'."

Mrs Pickard said Amy had shown flickers of movement from her bed at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings.

But she said her daughter had been struck down by pneumonia, leaving her even weaker and more vulnerable to infection.

Mrs Pickard, who will be spending Christmas at her daughter's bedside, added: "It's the worst thing she could have got. But she's a strong kid, like her mum, and she'll come through this with God's help.

"We just pray that next year will bring us our Amy back."