DRUG USE RISING FASTEST IN NEW EU MEMBER COUNTRIES: C. OF EUROPE

PRAGUE (AFP) - More needs to be done to tackle the fast growth in drug use
among prisoners in central and eastern Europe, a Council of Europe official
told AFP.

Christoppe Luckett, executive secretary of the Pompidou Group, the Council
of Europe's illicit drugs cooperation group, said increasingly Westernised
lifestyles together with outmoded methods of intervention in the region
were contributing to the problem.

"Historically, the central and eastern European countries have had a low
imprisonment rate but that has changed as the drug epidemic has hit these
countries," he said.

"While overall drug use rates remain lower overall than in western European
prisons the rate is growing faster in the region."

Speaking in Prague at the start of an international conference of drug
workers in European prisons, Luckett said that the criminalisation of drug
use in the region and a lack of staff training had also impacted on the
problem within the region's prisons.

Luckett said there was less tendency among prisons in central and eastern
Europe to use intervention and prevention programs and to make substitutes
for drugs available to addicts.

"That is not always a good thing," he said. "Effective intervention
programmes are expensive but ineffective ones are even more costly."

Prisoners continued to deserve basic rights including social and health
protection, he added.

More drug prevention and treatment services within prisons and better
contact between the whole criminal justice system including courts with
such facilities were needed, he said.

Of drug users in prison, 26 percent claimed to have begun taking drugs in
prison, he added.

"It is very easy to get drugs in prisons and in some ways the problem is
getting worse. More has to be done to tackle the problem as drugs are a
very disruptive element in prisons and lead to violence."

In the Czech Republic, for example, the number of prisoners with a history
of using drugs has risen sharply from 35 percent in the early 1970s to
between 50 and 60 percent, deputy justice minister Jakub Camrda said.

"The problem is increasing. In communist times drugs were not available but
now that lifestyles have changed more people are using drugs in society
generally," Camrda said.

"That is putting a lot of pressure on prison staff and on safety within
prisons."

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction,
up to 600,000 drug users pass through EU prisons each year.

Paddy Costall, director of UK-based conference organisers Cranstoun drug
services, said European Union (news - web sites) expansion on May 1 made
the issue critical.

"Statistics show that the number of ethnic minorities in prisons is
disproportionately high. With open borders and a rise in migration this
affects all of Europe," he warned.

According to the European Group for Prisoners Abroad, there are around
70,000 foreign nationals in European prisons. Of those, more than 25,000
are in Germany.

"Prisoners only remain locked up for a short time. They then go back into
society and take the habits acquired in prison with them. That makes this a
problem for the whole of society," added Luckett.