MOWLAM SPARKS NEW DEBATE CALL ON DRUGS

The admission by Dr Mo Mowlam, head of the Government's campaign against
drugs, that she smoked cannabis as a student has triggered fresh calls for
proper public debate on drugs policy in the UK.

It coincides with new findings from the Centre for Drug Misuse and Research
at Glasgow University which suggest that the rise in the number of
drug-related deaths over the past year could be the tip of an iceberg in
which the annual tally will soon dwarf last year's record figure of 147 in
Strathclyde.

Ms Mowlam's admission yesterday, coupled with her statement: "I will
continue to fight hard against drugs that can kill people, like heroin and
cocaine. I will continue to say to young people, as I have done for the
last two months in the job, that taking drugs is not within the law and not
a credible thing to do with your life," immediately fuelled calls for
greater openness and debate.

Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said: "The old zero
tolerance argument must stop. We recognise we now need different messages
for different groups. If you are going to stop people taking drugs, you
have to improve their quality of life in terms of housing, environment and
employment."

Professor Neil McKeganey and Dr Joanne Neale suggest in today's Herald that
the high number of deaths among older addicts in their 30s is part of a
pattern in which people who have been abusing heroin for 12 or 15 years
reach a point of extreme physical and mental vulnerability.

Dr Laurence Gruer, addictions co-ordinator with Greater Glasgow Health
Board, said many younger addicts also reached the point where they felt
life is hardly worth living. "About 70% of people actually dying from drugs
misuse or overdose are under 30. The commonest group is between 25 and 30
and there are more under 25 than between 30 and 35.

The ageing of the addicts could not fully explain the large fluctuation in
the number of deaths from year to year, he argued. One of the biggest
increases has been in the number of deaths in the former Strathclyde area
outwith Glasgow, where the numbers of deaths from drugs increased by 85%
from 34 in 1998 to 63 in 1999.

"There are signs that in the last couple of years, quite a number of people
have switched from smoking heroin to injecting. We see very few people die
from smoking heroin, whereas from injection it lands in the brain with a
sudden splash and can stop the signals from the brain to help you breathe."

Commenting on Professor McKeganey's call for more emphasis on services for
older addicts, Dr Gruer said: "That is where the great bulk of our effort
already goes. The average age of people coming into needle exchanges is 29
and the average age of people on methadone programmes is 30."

He also acknowledged that quite a number of the fatal overdoses are among
people living in hostels, who are very vulnerable, because a lot of drugs
get into hostels, but said that next year the health board hoped to set up
clinics in these places.