CRIME SUSPECTS WILL FACE DRUG USE SURVEY

UNIVERSITY researchers are asking crime suspects in Strathclyde and Fife to
fill in lifestyle questionnaires about the drugs they take and the crimes
they commit.

For several weeks, people taken under arrest to five large Scottish police
stations will also be asked to provide urine samples for analysis, to show
what illegal substances they have been taking.

Up till now, all information on the links between drugs and crime in
Scotland has been based on studies asking drug abusers if they commit crime
- - this research will for the first time ask crime suspects if they take drugs.

Everyone who takes part will be reassured that co-operation is voluntary
and the results will not be given to the police, or used to take them to
court.

Professor Neil McKeganey, the director of the Centre for Drug Misuse
Research at Glasgow University, said it was the first objective study of
the links between drugs and crime in Scotland.

Prof McKeganey said: " This survey method is widely used in the United
States and will provide, for the first time, a means of making
international and regional comparison of links between drug misuse and crime."

The study is being paid for by the Scottish executive. The snapshot of drug
abuse around Scotland that it will produce will be used to help plan the
war on drugs.

Two of the police stations taking part in the study are in Glasgow, at
Govan and at the East End. The other three are at Cupar, Kirkcaldy and
Dunfermline, in Fife, where community drugs workers have warned recently
that there is a growing heroin crisis, with high numbers of new addicts
unable to get any form of treatment or support.

John Hamilton, the chief constable of Fife, said that the research was
important to find out how much drug-related crime was being committed.

He said: "This project clearly has the potential to provide, at a local
level, research information of use to all of the agencies involved in
addressing the drugs problem."

The Crown Office has given its permission for the study to go ahead.

The Home Office commissioned a similar study in five English police force
areas in 1996. The results showed that nearly half those arrested who
reported taking drugs admitted that there was a connection between their
drug-taking and their offending. The majority offended to get money for drugs.