ATTITUDES TO DRUG DEATHS 'DEPENDENT ON CLASS'

Poor Youngsters Who Die From Heroin 'Matter Less' Than Victims Of Ecstasy

SCOTLAND cares less about poor youngsters overdosing on heroin than it
does about middle class youngsters who die after taking ecstasy, the
chief executive of a leading anti-drugs charity has claimed.

Netta Maciver, of Turning Point Scotland, said that society cared more
when a better-off, middle class youngster died after taking ecstasy
than it did about youngsters from poor and socially-deprived
backgrounds who were addicted to heroin.

"The most excluded often matter less - contrast the media coverage
given to a death from ecstasy with the equivalent from heroin," said
Ms Maciver. "There is not much difference in the age profile of the
person, but there does tend to be an affluence distinction."

Last year, of the 99 known drug-related deaths in the Strathclyde
Police force area, 81 were related to heroin and only three to ecstasy.

Yesterday, the toll of deaths from drugs in the region stood at 42 so
far in 1999, after the body of a 28-year-old man was found at his home
in Bevan Gardens, Kilwinning, at the weekend.

The body of Iain Dodds was discovered at 10am on Saturday. Officers
said their appeared to be no suspicious circumstances and a report
would be sent to the procurator fiscal. A 22-year-old man has been
arrested and is in custody in connection with the incident.

If current trends continue, drugs deaths in Strathclyde may reach a
record total of more than 120 this year, the vast majority of them
linked primarily to heroin.

Superintendent Barry Dougall, the Strathclyde Police drugs
co-ordinator, said: "I would tend to agree with Ms Maciver - that is
certainly the way the media seem to treat it. Heroin is seen as a
junkie drug, while ecstasy is seen as a bit sexier. The police
certainly treat them all the same way. Drug deaths are all equally
serious, regardless of the drug that causes it."

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Drugs Forum, the umbrella body for all
Scottish drugs agencies, agreed: "There is a distinction, when you
think about the coverage given to Leah Betts and that kind of death.

"If someone dies from heroin they are given maybe a paragraph. It is
almost as if it happens so much it is not newsworthy. And if someone
dies from ecstasy, they are always sympathetically portrayed as such
great kids who were good at school and had loads of friends.

"The attitude towards a heroin death is almost that it is what heroin
users deserve, that they are addicts and their fate is
inevitable."

Marilyne MacLaren, the crime and policing spokeswoman for the Scottish
Liberal Democrats, agreed that the waste of a promising young life
from experimenting with designer drugs "tugged at the heartstrings"
more than the death of a heroin addict who shoplifted to feed his habit.

"The death of a young person who appears to have everything to live
for and has come from loving parents does tug at the public
heartstrings," said Ms MacLaren. But she denied that this meant that
the caring services worked any less hard for heroin users, or that
society's response to drugs was hypocritical.

Spokesmen for other political parties were unavailable for
comment.

Ms Maciver spoke out on the day that Turning Point Scotland relaunched
itself, after devolving away from its UK-wide sister charity, Turning
Point. TPS runs 14 residential and day care services in towns and
cities across Scotland.

She said that society must narrow the gap between included and
excluded, by promoting social inclusion for the most vulnerable and
disadvantaged in society. This meant acknowledging that drug addicts
often had lots of other, interlinked problems, such as poverty,
homelessness, abuse and mental illness, and needed help to tackle all
of them.

"It is far too simplistic to expect everyone presenting themselves for
help to fit neatly into any one box, but very often, if they are
observed to have more than one problem they find it very difficult to
be accepted for treatment and the spiral of exclusion continues," said
Ms Maciver.

Supt Dougall warned that police had noticed a worrying trend towards
blurring the line between heroin as ecstasy, as heroin is growing in
popularity among young people as a drug to be smoked
recreationally.

"People who are taking ecstasy to go dancing are then smoking heroin
to come down from the effects of ecstasy, not realising heroin's
obvious potential for addiction," he said.

"So there is an increasing number taking heroin. I'm not sure that
there is an increasing number using ecstasy."