BLAIR WANTS UNITED EU ACTION ON DRUG GANGS

TONY BLAIR will tell the Scottish Parliament today that he wants to
see tough minimum penalties imposed in all European Union countries on
those trafficking in hard drugs.

In his first address to the new Edinburgh parliament, he will praise
the work of the devolved administration's Drugs Enforcement Agency -
but stress that action needs to be taken on a British and European
level. The Prime Minister will be accompanied on his two-day visit to
Scotland by Keith Hellawell, the drug "tsar".

Mr Blair told the Commons yesterday that he was launching a new
initiative within the EU to improve international co-operation in the
war against drugs and organised crime. In today's speech he will call
for minimum sentences across Europe because dealers and smugglers
currently faced sentences ranging from one to 20 years in different
countries.

Mr Blair intends to seek the agreement of other EU leaders to put the
need for co-ordinated action against drugs on the agenda at an EU
summit in Portugal in June. He wants to persuade countries currently
applying to join the EU - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Slovenia, Cyprus and Estonia - to agree to co-operate in moves to curb
drug trafficking and to adopt a minimum sentence policy agreed within
Europe.