In an undercover operation, Italian police have put paid to a 'drug bus' which supplied youngsters with illegal substances as it ferried them to trendy northern Italian night spots.
Police informants caught word of the bus in recent months but were assured it was an urban legend.
Then fresh tip-offs put them on the trail of an organisation offering a luxury coach for disco-goers to make sure they got to and from their destinations safely and substance-free.
Three young plain-clothes policemen climbed aboard the vehicle on Saturday night to find 23 passengers including two paraplegics popping ecstasy, smoking marijuana, snorting cocaine and also taking poppers, a drug reputed to improve sex.
The occupants of the bus were male students and factory workers between the ages of 19 and 21, as well as three minors.
Six of the passengers, including the pair who had hired the coach, were arrested on suspicion of dealing in drugs.
Police took the names of another seven, including one of the paraplegics, to add to their list of habitual consumers.
One of the paraplegics has been disabled since birth but the other lost the use of his legs after taking an almost-fatal drug cocktail at a rave last summer.
