JUST SAY NO TO A DRUGS CAMPAIGN THAT HAS ZERO RESONANCE

Alan Cochrane hopes Labour's new drugs policy will get down to the
grassroots issues without wasting money on advertising

In many ways it was a faintly ridiculous sight - all those middle-aged
politicians waddling around in sweatshirts and back-to-front basball hats
exhorting young people to stay off drugs. However, we shouldn't necessarily
berate the then Secretary of State Michael Forsyth for launching his all-
party initiative, Scotland Against Drugs.

Neither he nor George Robertson nor Alex Salmond, who joined him on the
battle-bus, could help their age or their lack of relevance to the young
people they were addressing. The blaze of publicity which attended the
campaign launch at least focused the minds of the entire population on the
scale of the drugs problem in Scotland. For that at least Forsyth and those
who supported him deserve credit.

But, perhaps inevitably, the caravan moved quickly on and the bulk of
drug-free Scotland went about its normal everyday business, tut-tutting as
it did so about all these nasty drug-takers.

In the meantime considerable sums of taxpayers' money continued to be spent
on the SAD advertising camoaign - money which, following a complete
reappraisal by the government, is now to dry up.

And about time, too. There have been predictable howls of protest that some
of the best and most-recognised advertising in the field of health
education is now to be placed on the scrap heap. But what we should
remember is that this was not designed as an Oscars ceremony for the
advertising industry. This was not a campaign designed to win plaudits for
the artistic and PR skills of the practitioners involved.

The carefully-drawn-to-be-shocking posters, billboards and TV commercials
may well have had a high recognition factor (the ad man's nirvana) but the
crucial question of whether they succeeded in stopping a single person from
taking drugs went unanswered.

The 'Just Say No' ethos lay at the heart of the effort and while all of
those Trainspotting-type images may well have had an impact with an adult
population which has only the sketchiest knowledge of the drugs culture, it
had zero resonance with those most at risk.

It is always tempting for adults to tell young people what not to do; we do
it all the time. However, experience over the generations should tell us
that they seldom listen. This has certainly been the case over the drugs
campaign. In talking to drug users in young offenders' institutions (YOI) -
my road to Damascus on this subject - last year it was clear that they
thought the whole thing worse than useless. What they wanted - and need -
was information to prevent them harming, or worse killing themselves, and
not lectures about just saying 'no'. That and counselling and
rehabilitation, both of which cost money.

There is a sophistication about drugs among even the youngest of teenagers
which defies the belief of all but those most closely involved and the
slick advertising campaign we have seen in recent years has come nowhere
near to addressing it.

But at least it was up there, in your face. And, as such, it has been
relatively easy for the authorities to justify the expenditure to the
public. We could see where the money was going. It is now of the utmost
importance that the government explains in the fullest possible detail what
it plans to put in its place with its dramatic change of tack. The
Secretary of State has said that the emphasis - and the resources - would
now be on "community effort to prevent drug abuse". All very well but what
does it mean?

In my experience community effort depends very much on the community, while
sitting-in on a drugs awareness group with young offenders at Polmont YOI
last year it was clear that several of them were desperate to get of drugs
and urgently required one-on-one drug counselling. While the young prison
officers in chargeof the group did what they could, the unfortunate fact
was that properly trained personnel were what the teenagers needed.

And here they were entirely in the hands of Scotland's local authorities.
Young prisoners from all over the country serve their sentences at Polmont
and social workers involved in drugs counselling have to travel there from
the inmates' home towns. But whether they do or not depends crucially on
one thing - resources.

If there are several imates from one local authority, and it is
geographically close to Polmont, then it might be cost- effective to
dispatch someone to offer counselling. If, however, that authority is a
long way from Polmont and has only one young man needing help, then the
powers-that-be may well decide that such a journey doesn't make economic
sense.

The result is that some inmates get help while others, in a similar plight,
simply do not qualify. It is a hopeless hotch-potch of a policy which
causes much unnecessary misery.

Donald Dewar is correct to switch the emphasis of Scotland's drug policy
but it is also imperative that we have a truly national approach. Harm
reduction is better than the largely ignored 'Just Say No', which is
effective for only the very young, but it must be applied uniformly across
the country.

In addition, resources should be concentrated at establishments, such as
Polmont, which are at the sharp end of the drug abuse problem instead of
leaving it to the vagaries of local government spending priorities.

There is nothing to be ashamed of in changing course on finding ways of
tackling Scotland's drugs problem - it is truly massive and may well prove
to be insoluble. But by spending what money is available on the ground
where it is needed, rather than on slogans, we are at least recognising how
desperately difficult a task we face.