MIXED MESSAGES BROKE PROMISES OF FINE RHETORIC

Scotland Against Drugs was never just any old campaign - it was a
flamboyant crusade, launched with warlike words in Michael Forsyth's 1996
New Year Message. But in its inflated rhetoric and over-optimism lay the
seeds of downfall.

"The drugs epidemic is a scourge as terrible as any medieval plague,"
thundered the then Scottish secretary. "We nust unite across party lines
and across every age group to drive the drug barons out of our communities."

In an unprecedented flourish of cross-party unity, the leaders of
Scotland's four major political parties pledged to support Mr Forsyth's
national initiative, due to last one year with funding of 1 million.

Five months later David Macauley, 36, a businessman and trained pharmacist,
was appointed to the 40,000-a-year job of campaign director of SAD.

His day-to-day job was to raise public awareness of drugs, and so encourage
businesses to donate to anti-drugs work in the community.

A panel of 32 business people, politicians, clerics, media folk and
celebrities, and only three experienced drugs workers, was appointed as
SAD's advisory council. The chairman was the Kwik-Fit entrepeneur, Tom Farmer.

Mr Macauiley said that his goal was a drug-free Scotland, so that within
ten years teenagers thought drugs were "uncool and old-fashioned."

But he said he favoured balanced information rather than shock tactics, and
promised no repeat of the "same old stereo-typical message" of "just say
no", which failed in the 1980s.

Unfortunately for the unity of anti-drugs work in Scotland, he was to break
his word.

Meanwhile, SAD's launch was heralded by the launch of a rebel group calling
itself Scotland Against Drugs Hypocrisy, which criticised the politicians
for condemning illegal drugs while relying on tax revenue from the legal
drugs alcohol and tobacco which kill tens of thousands of Scots each year.

SADH warned of a SAD-led backlash against harm-reduction policies, which
aimed to educate and protect young people who had started to take drugs.
SADH was to be proved right.

Then came the SAD launch. The spectacle of four middle-aged political
leaders in baseball caps trying to dance in an Edinburgh rave club, in
order to sell an anti-drugs message, was a uniquely comic start to the
campaign.

Trouble started in the autumn when SAD unveiled a series of TV ads. In one,
a young woman is about to be raped by her violent and drugged-up friend in
a bedsit. Other scenes included an ecstasy user waking up with no memory.

A second phase of ads were based around fears of adulterated drugs, losing
control, and date-rape.

Respected organisations like the Scottish Drugs Forum said the ads marked
an unwelcome return to "just say no" campaigning, and lacked credibility.
Others said they used the very shock tactics Mr Macauley had promised to
avoid.

SAD retorted that the ads had the full backing of Government and the
opposition parties, and the controversy had been successful at raising
awareness of drug problems. Research showed that 85 per cent of teenagers
had seen and remembered the ads.

Mr Forsyth announced he was doubling SAD's funding to 2 million for
1997-98, and in June 1997 Mr Macauley announced a fresh batch of "in your
face" TV and billboard adverts, aimied largely at parents.

"What do you call kids who have taken drugs?" asked one, and answered
itself: "The majority."

The simmering discontents about SAD among other drugs agencies exploded
into open warfare after the death of Andrew Woodlock, 13, from drinking too
much water after taking three ecstasy tablets.

Casting aside caution, Mr Macauley directly attacked harm reduction
policies, even though SAD funded several harm- reduction schemes.

"They are peddling death," he said flatly. "Something needs to be done
about groups that say that drugs can be safe."

Liz Skelton of the harm reduction group Crew 2000 retorted that Mr Macauley
was being "irresponsible and divisive". Another drug group leader said the
3.5 million spent on SAD had been wasted and SAD should be wound up. A
third accused SAD of repeating all the mistakes of the past. Even the Chief
Constable of Lothian and Borders Police, Roy Cameron, said SAD was no
longer useful.

The advisory council and the new Labour government were dismayed at the
controversy, but continued to back SAD. Quietly, however, a review was set
in place that yesterday culminated in SAD being reformed and its budget
slashed.