WARNING FOR JAILS OVER 'ONE STRIKE' DRUG PLAN

INMATES at an open prison at the centre of a row over heroin abuse yesterday
voiced support for the Government's tough new "one strike and you're out"
policy - but warned that it would lead to more hard drug use.

Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, has ordered that any open
prison inmate who tests positive for drugs should be sent back to a high
security jail for at least three months before they can reapply for the
privilege of an open jail.

He acted after a report by Clive Fairweather, the chief inspector of
prisons, revealed that an unusually high proportion of inmates at Noranside
open prison, near Forfar, were testing positive for heroin.

Last year, 14 per cent of the prisoners at Noranside tested positive for
drugs and 54 of out of 88 of the positive tests showed heroin abuse - 61 per
cent compared to 44 per cent in other prisons. Castle Huntly open prison
also shows high levels of positive drug tests.

Until now prisoners who test positive have been given a second chance but
this crackdown will mean a single positive test will send an inmate straight
back to a closed jail, for three months in the case of cannabis and six
months in the case of heroin.

Yesterday, most inmates at Noranside backed the new policy but Tony
Blacklock, 23, from Largs, serving three and a half years for assault to
severe injury, warned that the "one strike" proposal would drive soft drug
users onto heroin.

"Cannabis is in your system for 28 days but heroin is only there for two
days. It's easier to get rid of.

"The jail system will be creating junkies and that is a fact. I know guys
who have come in without a habit and left with one. This system will make
things worse."

Jimmy Dow, 39, serving three years for drug offences, said he was clean of
drugs but for those who used them in Noranside, heroin was top of the wish
list. "It's what I would expect, it isn't in the system for as long.
Everyone would like to take them if they could get away with it but it isn't
a risk I am prepared to take."

The Noranside governor, Alastair MacDonald, defended his jail, saying the
drug problem was not serious and that most inmates at the jail had battled
long and hard to get off drugs.

He conceded it was possible heroin abuse might increase.

"Heroin use is on the increase outside prison but it does not necessarily
follow that we are driving people to heroin with the introduction of
mandatory drug testing and the one strike policy. A lot of this is dictated
by drug dealers rather than what is claimed by prisoners."

At a press conference in Edinburgh, Mr Fairweather agreed there was no hard
evidence that mandatory drug testing drove prisoners to take heroin, despite
the prisoners' claims. Most drug abuse at open prisons occurred while the
prisoner was away from the jail on home leave.

"It did begin to cross my mind that individuals going on home leave from an
open prison, faced with a choice of taking cannabis or heroin, perhaps
believe cannabis lingers in the system longer and is a greater risk to their
freedom than heroin."