MINISTERS PLAN UKP1M HEROIN CRACKDOWN FOR SCOTLAND

MINISTERS are planning a national police crackdown on drug dealers and a
UKP1m education campaign to stem the upsurge in Scottish teenagers using
heroin.

Details of the Scottish Office initiative to tackle what it regards as a
growing social crisis emerged yesterday as Strathclyde police recorded yet
another death believed to be drug-related.

The body of Patrick McLeary, 37, was found in Glasgow on Christmas morning,
bringing the drug toll this year in the Strathclyde area to 100, almost
double the 51 recorded in 1997 and only two short of the record in 1995.
Many of the deaths involved heroin.

Glasgow has always had heroin addicts but what is alarming ministers is that
the drug is now fashionable among the under-twenties throughout Scotland -
in leafy suburbs, remote villages, clubland and big city housing schemes
alike.

An internal Scottish Office report reveals that increased heroin abuse
"affects all age groups but is particularly marked among
under-20-year-olds". Almost 50% of registered drug users regarded heroin as
their main drug in 1997 compared with 29% a year earlier.

Sam Galbraith, the health minister, and Henry McLeish, the home affairs
minister, will lead the initative which is to be launched before the spring.

It will involve at least trebling the UKP300,000 extra given last year to
the Health Education Board for Scotland for "new work to combat the threat
to young people from heroin". Schools, colleges and community centres will
also be given extra funding.

McLeish will ask police to target dealers in exercises similar to the recent
crackdown - Operation Foil - by Lothian and Borders police which involved
dozens of officers in co-ordinated raids across the region.

The ministers hope their programme to wean teenagers away from heroin will
attract users who want to give up their habit but are afraid to leave the
drug culture.

Galbraith said: "The aim is to make a real difference, one that can be
measured on the streets of Scotland and felt in communities up and down the
land."

About UKP50m is spent on tackling drug abuse across all services and
agencies in Scotland.

Ministers now have firm evidence that figures showing 5,000 registered
heroin addicts in Scotland represent only a fraction of the real figure. And
that does not include the recent trend among youngsters to switch to heroin
from less addictive substances.

In the year ending March 31, 1997, there were 1,300 new notifications of
heroin addiction in Scotland, up from 956 the previous year. Anecdotal
evidence from drug clinics suggests that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Although the new Scottish Office approach is likely to be broadly welcomed
by anti-drugs agencies and workers, it is unlikely to resolve differences
between those who favour "harm reduction strategies" and those who promote
total abstinence or "zero tolerance" of drug addiction.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst