FORMER POLICE CHIEF ATTACKS POLITICIANS FOR 'CULTURE OF TOLERANCE' OVER DRUGS

A FORMER SCOTTISH police chief has accused politicians of failing to
tackle the drugs problem by allowing the development of a "culture of
tolerance".

Dr Ian Oliver, former chief constable of Grampian Police, said that
government in the UK had taken an accepting approach to drugs by
advocating harm-reduction measures such as needle exchanges and
methadone maintenance.

And he has argued that there should be major public information
campaigns on drugs and better education on the subject in schools in
order to foster an attitude of intolerance towards drugs in society.

Oliver, who has also acted as an independent consultant to the United
Nations on drugs, is the latest figure to enter the debate over the
use of harm-reduction measures, such as methadone, in tackling the
drugs problem.

Last week it emerged that Labour are preparing to adopt a tougher
drugs policy in their manifesto for next year's Holyrood elections,
with addicts urged to try abstinence rather than methadone.

Oliver, who has just published a new book entitled Drug Affliction,
claimed there was a lack of public awareness of the devastating
impact of drugs on society, as many people were not directly involved
in the problem.

"The reality is that for the past 20 years we have more or less just
sat back and let the problem get out of control," he said. "A lot of
that has been cultural tolerance and acceptance with people who are
now working in government, local authority and so on, who have grown
up in a world where drugs are there.

"They don't see them in quite the same way as people of my
generation, who lived in a world when they weren't there."

He added: "We have got this mad approach to drugs - we are supposed
to be anti-drugs, according to our national drug plan. Yet time and
time again the government talks about harm reduction, needle
exchanges, methadone maintanence and retoxifying prisoners."

Oliver said he believed methadone should only be used as a treatment
and not as maintenance to try to stabilise addicts' lives.

He said: "As a police officer, I never came across anyone who was on
methadone who wasn't also on a street drug and using it as a crutch.

"Just leave them on the drug for 20 years and it is actually more
addictive than heroin."

He called for more investment in facilities to treat addicts, but
argued that initiatives such as high-profile public health education
campaigns and improved education in schools were also required.

"It is part of the skills to living that we need to be teaching," he
said. "But it isn't only the kids - it's parents and grandparents and
professionals who need to know about these things," he said.

His comments last night met with a mixed response from politicians
and drugs charities.

Tory leader Annabel Goldie also backed a preventative approach,
describing the drug problem as a "cancer that has been eating away at
our society for far too long".

"Prevention, rather than harm reduction, is the key and that has to
start with education in our schools, eradicating drugs from our
prisons, cracking down on those who deal in death and rehabilitating
users to stop the spiral of crime and addiction," she said.

But Stewart Stevenson, deputy justice spokesman for the SNP, argued
there was no real evidence that public information campaigns worked.

"It certainly is important that we put more effort into schools, to
educate kids about the dangers of drugs," he said. "But broadly based
advertising on the subject is not likely to deliver very much that is of use."

He added: "The bottom line about drugs is that it is closely
associated with deprivation, and until we tackle social deprivation
in many of our communities Scotland will continue to have serious
drugs problems."

David Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, the national
drugs policy and information charity, said that while the notion of a
drug-free society was laudable, it was "simply not achievable".

"The United Nations has a target of a drug-free world by 2008 and,
sadly, it is advisers such as Dr Oliver who have led them down this
totally unrealistic route," he added.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said it had increased
overall investment in drug treatment from UKP12.3 million five years
ago to UKP23.7m this year. She added that drugs education is now in
place in 99% of schools.

"Clearly, stopping young people getting involved in drugs in the
first place is where any drugs strategy begins," she said.