A SENIOR Scottish drugs adviser has warned the Government to scale down
its macho talk about appointing a "tsar" to lead the "war" on drugs.

The rhetoric risked forcing the new UK Antidrugs Coordinator to
concentrate on police clampdowns, which had already failed to solve the
drugs problem, says Dr Laurence Gruer in today's British Medical
Journal. Paul Betts, the father of the ecstasy victim Leah Betts, said
he supported Dr Gruer's calls for a broaderbased approach. He has said
he intends to apply for the role of drugs tsar himself.

Dr Gruer, the addictions consultant to Greater Glasgow Health Board,
said tough talk about imprisoning drugtakers and dealers was popular
with the voting public. But fighting drugs this way was expensive and
had failed to solve a problem of the prevalence of drugs in society
that probably never would be solved.

The drug tsar should instead divert more of the money spent on control
towards those drugs campaigns that were actually believed, the education
initiatives that reached the people who needed them, and the drugs
treatments that were helping addicts to control and quit their habit.

"The macho nature of the post is signalled by its title no tsarina
need apply," says Dr Gruer in the article Why Britain's drug tsar
mustn't wage war on drugs.

"Prisons are already bursting with new inmates on remand or sentence for
addictionfuelled crime. It would be criminal negligence to spend yet
more on control whilst demand for treatment still far outstrips
capacity."

Dr Gruer is an advocate of the controversial therapy of prescribing
methadone to heroin addicts.

In Glasgow, where the use of methadone is monitored, the powerful drug
has helped many addicts to stabilise their lives and stop committing
crime. But in Grampian, where methadone is handed out without
supervision, the drug has filtered on to the black market and become the
leading killer of young drugtakers.

Mr Betts, a former policeman from Latchingdon in Essex, whose daughter
died after taking ecstasy at her 18th birthday party, agreed yesterday
that it was important to help users and educate children about the
dangers of drugs. However, he said that society should crack down on
dealers as well.

He said that the senior policemen who had already applied might be seen
as too authoritarian and threatening by young people. "If you talk to
the older elements, then cracking down and throwing away the key is the
answer. If you talk to the younger elements, then they want to legalise
their unlawful acts," Mr Betts said.

"But there are quite a lot of people in between. It's no good waving a
stick and expecting one policy to sort it out. I'm looking at a ten to
15year cycle before we see any change, because what we have to do is go
into primary schools and start drug education there."

In his article, Dr Gruer called for more research to show which drugs
campaigns did work, and which did not. The whole drugs issue had been
clouded with an excess of rhetoric and not enough hard facts, he said.

"If the evidence does not currently exist, the tsar should set aside
perhaps 1 per cent of the budget to establish centres charged with
correcting the poverty of research output in this field in Britain.
Science would then properly serve the policy making process, and the
appointment of a UK drug tsar would be a true step forward."