DRUGS POLICY 'IS NOT WORKING'

A drug expert who said the death of ecstasy victim Leah Betts only
received publicity because of her looks and background was last night
described as an idiot by her father.

Director of Scottish Drugs Training Rowdy Yates, 49, said yesterday
that Leah's death would not have received such coverage had she been
fat and ugly and come from a lower-class background

He made his comments during a lecture he was giving at Stirling
University on Government drugs policy over 100 years.

He told his audience: "When Leah Betts died after an ecstasy overdose,
she was highlighted because of the efforts of her parents.

"She was a pretty young teenager and there were good photographs of
her.

"There was the added irony that her mother was peripherally involved
in drugs education and her father was an ex-policeman.

"If Leah had been fat and ugly nobody would have heard of
her."

Leah Betts died in 1995 after taking an ecstasy tablet on her 18th
birthday at home.

Her parents, Paul and Jan, released a shocking photograph of her lying
in a hospital bed attached to a life-support machine in a bid to warn
of the dangers of taking the drug.

Dr Yates is the director of the Scottish Drugs Training Project, which
receives more than A3200,000 a year in Scottish Government funding.

The project trains professional drug counsellors.

He said: "We don't hear about them when it happens in
socially-deprived council schemes where the parents are very often
inarticulate and they don't have pretty pictures of their kids.

"For example, children who die from drugs in Muirhouse in Edinburgh.
They don't make the news in the same way - these deaths are tragic
too, yet they are never addressed or responded to.

"The Government has put a lot of effort into developing services for
young people using ecstasy, but that ignores the fact that the most
popular illicit drugs are amphetamine and cannabis.

"The war against drugs has taken a very short-term attitude and also
focused on completely the wrong drugs. Policies are made as a reaction
to events like Leah's death.

"They do not create policies for infection-control, crime prevention
or how to get people off drugs"

Dr Yates said that funding for drug counselling projects needed to be
committed for periods of at least 10 years and a concerted approach
was needed for services.

Last night, Paul and Jan Betts, who now live in the North-east, said
the publicity was not due to their daughter's looks or background.

Mr Betts, 53, said: "It wasn't because Leah was photogenic, it was
because her parents had the ability to speak out and not be sat upon
by idiots like Mr Yates. Following on from Leah's death, ecstasy was
then researched fully and more is now known about its long-term effects.

"When Leah died, 75% of young people said they were minded to use
ecstasy, but now, more than 75% say they would not go anywhere near
it. In my opinion it takes high-profile cases to get people's heads
out of their backsides and I think Leah, Jan and I have managed to do
that very well.

"We know what we are talking about and I think we are now getting the
respect we deserve."

A spokesman at the Scottish Executive said: "The approach to tackling
drug misuse is anything but reactive. We have got an aggressive drugs
strategy which cuts across all the different agencies in Scotland.

"We have set up a cabinet committee on drug misuse which is going to
look at the long-term measures to beat the problem. We are also
funding local drug action teams which operate on a long-term basis."

Conservative home affairs spokesman at Holyrood Phil Gallie said:
"Ecstasy does deserve a high level of attention. It is not just
because of Leah Betts, but all the deaths which result from the drugs."

The MSP, in whose Ayr constituency the infamous Hanger 13 nightclub
was closed down following the deaths of three people who had taken
ecstasy, backed the fight against the drug.

He added: "The amount of money that is spent on drugs abuse and means
of trying to solve it is already phenomenal and still there is a
demand for more."