DRUGS POLICY CONDEMNED

A top drugs adviser in Scotland yesterday launched a stinging attack on the
Government's drugs policy, branding it "illogical and reactionary".

Dr Rowdy Yates, director of the Scottish Drugs Training Project, which
receives funding of more than UKP200,000 a year from the Scottish Executive,
accused successive governments of developing drugs policy in reaction to
high-profile events like the death of teenage ecstasy victim Leah Betts.

Dr Yates, 49, provoked an angry response from the teenager's parents when he
claimed the huge response to her death came about because she was photogenic
and came from a middle-class background.

"If Leah had been fat and pimply, nobody would have heard of her," he said
yesterday.

Addressing a seminar at Stirling University, Dr Yates claimed progress would
not be made in the war against drug abuse until long-term funding was made
available for what he called "the right causes".

He told the conference: "Policies are made as a reaction to events. (The
Government) do not create policies for infection control, crime prevention,
or to get people off drugs.

"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
pimply nobody would have heard of her.

"In that year many, many more young people would have died from sniffing
volatile solvents. We don't hear about them because it happens in
socially-deprived council schemes where the parents are very often
inarticulate, and they don't have pretty pictures of their kids.

"These deaths are tragic too, yet they are never addressed or responded to."

Leah Betts died in 1995 after taking an ecstasy tablet on her 18th birthday
at home in Essex. Yesterday her father Paul Betts, 53, who now lives with
his wife Jan in Banffshire, described Mr Yates as "an idiot".

He denied his daughter's death had only risen to prominence because she was
good-looking: "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 Leah's death, ecstasy was 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.

"It takes high-profile cases to get people's heads out of their backsides."

But he added: "In relation to alcohol, tobacco, and solvents, I agree with
Mr Yates that the Government is reactionary. As a nation, we are not
pro-active and always wait until the horse has bolted before shutting the
door."

In his speech, Dr Yates called for funding for drug counselling projects to
be committed for periods of at least 10 years, as opposed to the maximum of
three years at present.

Scottish Tory home affairs spokesman Phil Gallie, in whose Ayr constituency
the notorious nightclub Hanger 13 was closed down after the deaths of three
young people from ecstasy in 1994, said: "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.

"The Government is limited in what it can do. The level of funding is
already excessive, considering that people are dying of cancer and heart
attacks. I have a lot more sympathy for money-chasing people whose problems
are not self-induced illegally."