CALL TO ADOPT TOUGH NEW DRUGS STANCE

Goldie Seeks Fresh Approach To Scottish Epidemic

SENIOR SWEDISH politicians and drugs experts are to meet with the
Conservative leader Annabel Goldie and a leading drugs professor to
discuss how Scotland can adopt Sweden's successful zero-tolerance
approach to the problem.

Members of the European Council Against Drugs (Ecad), politicians
and civil servants will hear a presentation from Neil McKeganey,
director of Glasgow University's Centre for Drugs Misuse Research,
about Scotland's crisis tomorrow before meeting Goldie at Holyrood
on Tuesday.

McKeganey, who has long maintained the government's harm reduction
policies are failing Scotland's 50,000 heroin abusers, believes
Sweden's hardline approach to illegal drugs could be used in Scotland.

He told the Sunday Herald: "The Swedes cast drug use very clearly as
something which shouldn't occur, as opposed to our government's
position that we can only reduce the harmful effects of illegal
drugs. Every other European country has simultaneously tried
to reduce the harm of continued drug use and the scale of the
problem. They have high-quality treatment available immediately to
all those who need it, but we have incredibly meagre residential
rehabilitation resources."

McKeganey said the General Register Office for Scotland's recent
statistics - showing that deaths linked to drug abuse rose by 25%
last year, with 421 deaths, 85 more than in 2005 - proved that
government policies have failed. The highest previous figure was in
2002, when 382 died.

Sweden has only 28,000 addicts among its population of nine million,
and that figure includes all drug users. It had a tolerant approach
in the mid-1960s, but reversed its policy when drugs became an
epidemic in the 1970s, according to Ecad director Tomas Hallberg.

Hallberg said: "We had the epidemic before many other countries, so
we've had longer to cope with it. It shouldn't be controversial for
people like Professor McKeganey to talk about the difficulties of
making treatment easier for addicts."

Hallberg added that Sweden's biggest problem was tempting addicts to
take up their places at the treatment centres, funded by regional governments.

Goldie, whose party has pledged UKP100m to fund treatments, said:
"Scotland has suffered far too long from an epidemic of drug abuse,
and I am trying to lead the call for a new political will to tackle
this head-on for the sake of addicts, their families and society."