DRUG ADDICTION 'IS WELL ABOVE' OFFICIAL FIGURE

THE number of hard drug addicts has been severely underestimated and Scots
children are getting hooked at an earlier age, according to evidence given
to MSPs yesterday.

One voluntary worker sounded a note of despair by claiming that "the war on
drugs has been lost".

The Scottish parliament's social inclusion committee heard that the number
of drug addicts in Glasgow is at least a third more than the official figure.

Billy Fox, the development officer of the Glasgow Association of Family
Support Groups, which has won high praise from MSPs in the past, said: "The
scale of the problem is horrendous. This is the worst I've seen it."

He added: "There's younger and younger people that are starting to use
drugs. When I first went into schools in the late 1980s I didn't think I
would be addressing problems in primary schools.

"There's a lot of primary school pupils exploring drugs, taking drugs and
trying to use them."

Mr Fox said he estimated the official figure of 12,500 drug addicts in
Glasgow was way off the mark, with the true number much higher.

"I would have said that figure five years ago. I think it is a conservative
estimate. I would put another 6,000 on to that.

"We are also beginning to see more drug deaths. There were 148 last year
but that's only the ones recorded [as drug deaths]. You have to multiply
that figure by three."

Mr Fox told MSPs that there should be a different approach to drug-related
crime to stop the "revolving door" of addicts persistently offending.

"Seventy-five per cent of prisoners are in with drug-related offences. More
should be done to treat them and it should be looked at as an illness."

He added: "People should be given the opportunity to help themselves and if
they don't then they are facing a prison situation."

James Harrigan, a volunteer with the association, said that you had to
multiply by three or four the official figure of 12,500 drug addicts to
arrive at the number of people directly affected by addicts' behaviour.
"The drugs war has been lost. We're now dealing with the survivors - the
refugees," he told MSPs.

Mr Harrigan said the attitude of society to drug addicts needed to change.

"If you look at the word 'junkie' in the dictionary it is something that
you discard. How would you like it if your son or daughter was thrown into
a skip?"

The committee also heard from Alastair Ramsay, head of Scotland Against
Drugs, who defended his organisation against accusations that it was out of
touch.

"I want to dispel the myth that Scotland Against Drugs is about 'just say
no'. The drug scene has evolved and the Scotland Against Drugs of today is
different to the one that was set up," he said.

Mr Ramsay was asked by the committee convener, Margaret Curran, the Labour
MSP for Ballieston, how long Scotland Against Drugs was going to last. He
replied: "There are at the moment no commitments made beyond 2001."