DRUGS: THE CHILD VICTIMS

News Focus

He was described by one neighbour as the "lovely wee boy with an
angelic face" whose short life came to an end less than a fortnight
after celebrating his second birthday.

When Lisa Dodds found the lifeless body of Derek Alexander Doran in
his bed, she reacted not as a registered drug addict, but a frightened
mother.

After she ran to a neighbour's house to raise the alarm, the child was
taken to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, but it was
too late. The toddler, understood to have mistaken methadone for a
soft drink, was dead on arrival.

The full circumstances behind Derek's death have yet to emerge, and it
is unclear if police will be able to establish how he opened the
secure lid of the medication bottle. Yet the details already known
hold a grim familiarity.

It has been estimated that 60,000 Scottish children are affected by
the drug abuse of their parents, and the problem is getting worse. The
number of babies born to drug-addicted mothers rose over the four
years from 1998/99 to 2002/03 from 199 to 334 - an increase of almost
68%.

Jack McConnell, first minister, has said the needs of addicts'
children must come first. Speaking last month after it was revealed
that an 11-year-old girl from Glasgow had used heroin, he said the
Scottish Executive was working towards improved legislation which
would make it a duty in law for professionals to share the information
"necessary to protect our children".

The government's role, he added by way of a caveat, is not the sole
solution. Families, friends and neighbours must play their part.

In this latest tragedy, policy regarding the prescription of methadone
has emerged as a key issue, one which will again come under intense
political scrutiny alongside child protection laws and social work
reform.

In 1999/2000, some 144,368,364ml of the mixture were dispensed. Just
four years later, that figure had more than doubled to 294,904,358ml -
at a cost to the NHS of more than UKP11.6m. It is estimated that in
2004, 19,227 Scots took methadone, around a third of the nation's
opiate users. The current system of dispensing, argue addiction
experts, fails to supervise users and their families. It remains,
though, merely one component of a complex, expensive and long-term set
of solutions.

Annabel Goldie, a stern critic of methadone prescription, said: "Drug
and methadone dependency have reached epidemic proportions with our
social services left to pick up the pieces of government policy that
lacks the will to tackle the issue head-on." Education governing drug
misuse, she added, has been a disaster, and should be replaced with a
zero-tolerance stance complemented by "properly resourced
rehabilitation".

Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the centre for drugs misuse
research at Glasgow University, accused many drugs treatment services
of reticence in assessing users and their families. He said: "These
anxieties are costing our children dear. One the one hand, we say the
needs of children are paramount [yet] some services are reluctant to
ask about them.

"The current systems in place are inadequate . . . where an addict is
on methadone they need to be very closely supervised, and so do their
families. These households can go from relative stability to relative
chaos within a couple of hours depending on chemical intake. Methadone
must be used for a clear set of aims - to help users move towards
becoming drug-free. There are treatment services which do not realise
this."

While some patients procure doses on a daily basis from one of more
than 800 community pharmacies in Scotland, others are given weekly
amounts as part of a "take-home" prescription. Lothian and Borders
Police declined to comment on how Derek's parents received theirs.

Susan Dean, spokeswoman for the Scottish Drugs Forum, an umbrella
group for anti-drug charities, police and treatment providers, urged
investigations into Derek's death to centre on whether his parents'
prescriptions were properly assessed.

But she rejected the notion that the use of the liquid heroin
substitute itself was to blame.

She said: "It is completely missing the point to condemn the use of
methadone in this instance. It is, and can only ever be, part of a
comprehensive package of solutions.

"The issue under scrutiny should not be methadone, but how well the
current system of support allows it to work.

"It provides the chemical help - but only works if people are offered
psychological and social assistance as well."

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, the regulatory and
professional body for pharmacists, is against 100% supervision of
methadone administration, warning of creating a "secondary
dependence".

It has nevertheless admitted to levels of inconsistency in how
Scottish health boards administer dispensing, with "variable"
arrangements across the country.

Wasted Lives

Scott Saunders - A 33-month-old from Rutherglen, he died in 2000 after
being beaten, starved and locked in an unheated room while his mother,
Cheryl Hanson, and her boyfriend, Mark Connelly, fed their heroin
habit. In just over five weeks, he had been transformed from a
well-nourished child into a living skeleton.

Caleb Ness - The 11-week-old from Edinburgh spent the first three
weeks of his life in 2001 withdrawing from drugs taken by his mother,
Shirley Malcolm, during her pregnancy. While his mother was at a local
chemist obtaining methadone, Caleb's father, Alexander, shook him
violently until he died.

Danielle Reid - The five-year-old from Inverness died from massive
head injuries after being beaten by her mother's lover, Lee Gaytor, a
heroin addict. When her mother, Tracy Reid, discovered what had
happened, she helped her lover stuff her daughter's body in a case,
weigh it with bricks and dump it in the Caledonian Canal.