A new project aims to tackle the high level of Asian men who take performance-enhancing drugs to improve their physique.

Keighley drug and alcohol service Project 6 will work with gym users as well as club owners to try to curb the use of illegal substances.

It is part of a wider scheme run by the charity under the title "Asian Communities Develop-ment Projects" - believed to be the only one of its kind in Yorkshire.

Key aims of the project will be to work with schools and mosques in the area and to gain the trust of the drug users to help them break the habit.

Three specialist workers will be employed to deliver drug education policies and establish pathways into drug treatment in a culturally sensitive manner.

The project arose out of the Community Engagement Project, produced last June, which sparked a number of recommendations, including a call for better drugs education.

A total of 141 people were interviewed in the year-long probe, with 28 per cent claiming steroids - the best known muscle building drug - were commonly used by Asians in Keighley.

Project 6 director Mike Cadger said: "It's a very exciting, positive thing. It's very rare that you do a piece of research that produces recommendations and you then get the funding to carry out those recommendations.

"I'm not aware of any project of this type, certainly in the Yorkshire region, and not much in the UK.

"We're working with the community on their ground, on their terms and are not shirking from their responsibilities."

A youth worker has already started educating young Asians, aged between 12 and 19, and is particularly focusing on working with Greenhead and Oakbank schools, along with other institutions such as mosques.

Mr Cadger said: "We're hoping to get across the drug education and drug prevention message to young people. We want to work with them rather than pointing the finger at them."

A second strand deals with drug users, aged 16 and above, within the Asian community.

Two new workers are set to take up roles within the next few weeks, with Mr Cadger admitting that the high usage of body building drugs was a concern.

He said: "Although users may not think they are doing anything illegal, steroids and other performance enhancing drugs do have adverse effects, both physically and psychologically.

"We are trying to get this message across to the people who run the gyms and the people who use them."

Project 6 chairman Dr Jean Jagger said: "We are delighted that following on from our report, launched in June 2005, we have been successful in securing the necessary funding to develop and expand our Asian Communities Project to meet the identified recommendations."

A national report produced the Government's Black and Minority Ethnic Mental Health Programme in June, suggested that drug abuse was rising among the Asian population.

Cllr Khadim Hussain said he welcomed the initiative but warned that long-term roots needed to be put down for the scheme to succeed.

Cllr Hussain said: "There has been an issue with Project 6 in that it has failed to penetrate into the south Asian community.

"One or two workers did some brilliant work but it was not sustained. Hopefully, the new workers will be able to deliver the kind of continuity that it needs.

"I fully support the project and will give it any assistance that it needs."

He added that drugs were an increasing problem in the town - one that was not restricted to young men.

"It's becoming an epidemic in parts of Keighley and now girls unfortunately are becoming the victims as well," he said.

Mujeeb Rahman, secretary of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, said the problem lay in the wider British community.

He added that Islamic law placed a total ban on drugs and alcohol.