DRUGS AGENCIES GANG TOGETHER IN FRESH STREET BATTLE

IN THE war against drugs, Scotland has lost every battle. Scots are taking
more illegal drugs than ever before, starting at a younger age, consuming
for longer and enjoying a wider selection of chemical stimulants,
hallucinogens and depressants. Availability has doubled, the street price
has halved and in many areas of Edinburgh and Glasgow you can have heroin,
cannabis or cocaine delivered faster than a pizza.

The statistics, stripped of the cloak of human interest, are depressingly
frank. In Scotland, an average of 300 people die of drug abuse each year,
almost three times the rate of Holland, a country with a population three
times the size. In Glasgow, where half of all our problem drug users
reside, the figure has exploded by almost 80 per cent in the last eight
years to 15,368.

Drug smugglers are now so successful prices have dropped to within reach of
pocket money. Temazepam tablets are as little as pounds1 while ecstasy,
cannabis and amphetamines can be bought for a fiver.

In police enforcement, the number of offences under the 1971 Misuse of
Drugs Act was 5,000 in 1988. This has leapt to 29,000 in 1997.

A possible bright note is that seizures of controlled drugs in the past
decade have increased by more than 350 per cent, from 6,000 to 28,000, a
spot that dims considerably as drug workers conclude that seizures have
made no difference to supply on the streets.

It is official: Scotland, whether we choose to admit it or not, is hip-deep
in drugs.

Yet, almost a million parents teenagers and children approve - 22.5 per
cent of the Scottish population have taken illegal drugs. The dilemma
facing the Scottish executive is that the vast majority of illicit drug
users are gainfully employed and happy to drift into a heightened state on
ecstasy over the weekend, mellow out over a joint or burn up a Friday night
on speed or cocaine. They don't register on official statistics because
their lives haven't unravelled.

The creation of the Scottish parliament has given a new impetus to the
fight against drugs, away from those dark days of politicians in baseball
caps talking to "da kids".

Action in Partnership, the Scottish executive's document, has linked up the
country's disparate drug agencies . Critics, however, insist they are
turning back towards the past and an adaptation of "Just Say No", where
young people are consistently presented with the worst-care scenario, an
image regularly shattered by the experience of their friends.

Over the next few years a co-ordinated approach will be set up, each school
will have effective management for drug misuse, training and education on
the dangers . Drugs are to be tackled across four fields: young people are
to be better informed; there will be support for communities ; treatment
for addicts is to be improved; and availability of drugs is to be reduced.

At Scotland Against Drugs, the government's prevention agency, director
Alastair Ramsay is asking for time. "We've never been so co-ordinated and
we need five years to see if the approach works. If it doesn't, I think
Angus McKay [minister for drugs misuse] is a big enough man to say this
worked and we will continue it or this didn't work, what else can we try?"

Mr Ramsay is strongly opposed to any plans to decriminalise cannabis on the
grounds that health risks have been consistently undersold, wider
availability would lead to greater use and such a change would wreck the
executive's current plans.

"We need stability and consistency to see if our approach works," he
argued. "All that would change if decriminalisation was introduced. "

A review in five years' time would dove-tail nicely with Glasgow
University's Centre for Drug Misuse which, this summer, has embarked on a
five-year study of the efficacy of a range of treatments of addicts.

A large survey of the drug habits of the Scottish population is expected
later this year from the centre . No-one is expecting a drop in user rates,
more realistic will be a repeat of a chilling sentence from the last study
in 1996 that reported: "the upward trend in drug misuse has not yet peaked".

For those more closely associated with hard drug users, the discussion over
decriminalisation of cannabis is a red herring. Although the Scottish Drugs
Forum would welcome the drug's reduction from a Class B to a Class C drug,
it would also welcome more greater funding for addiction centres.

"We have a lack of rehab centre, detox centres, there is a dreadful lack of
services in rural areas and all those who want to get on to methadone
cannot do so," said Kathleen Travers, of the SDF. "There is too much talk
about the decriminalisation of cannabis. That is not where the problem
lies. The problem lies with hard drug users whose lives have spun out of
control."

A major problem is a lack of drug treatment centres. When a headmaster
calls Scotland Against Drugs for advice on how to deal with a 14-year- old
girl on heroin, he is referred to the girl's GP. Where the Netherlands
offer a one-stop-shop, with centres in every major city and towns offering
a range of addiction treatments for alcohol to heroin , Scotland remains a
jumbled variety of services, all complaining of under-funding, but saying
the executive has made a step in the right direction.

"The executive agreed that for too long there was too much money put into
enforcement at the expense of treatment. That is being redressed," said Ms
Travers.

But what should we be doing? When you ask one experienced drugs worker what
he would do if the First Minister is impotent over the reserved drugs law,
he smiles . "I would instruct a Royal Commission to carry out a review of
the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.

"The law was written by the finest legal minds in the country, but at a
time when there was a few thousands addicts in Britain. No-one, I repeat,
no-one could have imagined a situation when we have over 12,000 hard drug
addicts in Glasgow alone.

"Legalisation is not an option, but a serious re-assessment of the drug
sentencing laws and the approach of the police is."

As another drug worker said: "If this is a war, then it's Vietnam."