TOO FEW REHABILITATION CENTRES FOR DRUG ADDICTS

THE Prime Minister used yesterday's historic speech in the parliament
to talk about drugs. It was a good subject, carefully chosen: an
urgent social issue which demonstrates, as Tony Blair undoubtedly
wished to do, why Scotland should remain part of a larger United
Kingdom. His theme of cross-border co-operation within the European
Union applies equally to cooperation within our own Union. Drugs,
after all, know no borders.

Scottish Labour's rhetoric on drugs in Scotland has tended to lapse
into macho language about "wars". Mr Blair yesterday tried to combine
an aggressive emphasis on fighting crime with a more compassionate
concern for the casualties of drug addiction. On a visit to a
rehabilitation hostel in Glasgow, he took with him not only Jim Orr,
the head of Scotland's new Drugs Enforcement Agency, but also Keith
Hellawell, the UK drugs "tsar", who is concerned with advice and
strategy rather than enforcement.

The Prime Minister's visit to Phoenix House highlighted the scale of
the problem. Figures suggest that up to a quarter of homeless people
in Glasgow may be dependent on drugs, with 18 per cent using heroin.
Yet Phoenix House has just 42 beds, and Keith Raffan, the Liberal
Democrat MSP, revealed in parliament yesterday that addicts must join
a nine-month waiting list for treatment at the centre. It took just 12
months for 146 people to die drugs-related deaths last year in the
Strathclyde region alone. If this is war, then more field hospitals
are needed for the walking wounded.

The coalition Partnership Agreement includes a promise - demanded by
the Liberal Democrats - that more money be dedicated to help wean
addicts away from drugs and back into useful lives. Inspirational
schemes are being established, such as a Glasgow project to help
prostitutes leave the street and train for new jobs while getting help
to break their drug habits. But there are simply too few
rehabilitation and treatment centres, mostly run by voluntary
organisations who survive hand to mouth, year to year, without
long-term secure funding from local or central government.

To make matters worse, Scotland's deputy justice minister, Angus
MacKay, has halted new initiatives pending an audit of how much
government spends on drugs projects, and where the money is spent. Yet
Mr MacKay has so far proved passionate and dedicated in his search for
imaginative solutions.

To ask: "Is it working? Is it worth it?" is a Blairite response, and a
sensible one. Only last year the deputy chief constable of Lothian and
Borders police, Tom Wood, called the maze of overlapping drugs
agencies "chaotic", and called for a review.

Of course we need efficiency and effectiveness. But to halt work which
could save lives defies common sense. Did someone mention to Mr Blair
the length of the waiting list at Phoenix House? Did anyone point to
the addicts still out in the cold, deprived of even the chance to put
their lives back together?

What is needed is a co-ordinated programme of drug treatment,
rehabilitation and training to enable addicts not simply to come off
drugs but to build purposeful new lives. The government has recognised
the need for "joined-up thinking" - but must extend it beyond the
cabinet committee meeting to the hostel waiting list.