DRUGS RETOX PROGRAMME

Options Must Be Explored To Find Better Solution

It reads like a satire but is, in fact, official policy. There is a
country, call it Scotland if you will, where thousands of young lives and
entire communities are being destroyed by drugs. Crime, the means by which
addicts feed their habit, is climbing. Large amounts of taxpayers' money is
spent locking addicts up and detoxifying them so they do not offend again.
Having been detoxed, however, there is a risk that some prisoners will
overdose as soon as they are released. To be on the safe side, the state
"retoxes" them with methadone, a heroin substitute.

As Dr Richard Simpson, deputy justice minister, said yesterday, the radical
approach is taken with just a handful of the 7500 prisoners on detox
programmes. The individuals in question are deemed to lead such chaotic
lives, and their determination to go back on drugs is judged so strong,
that reintroducing them to opiates is seen as the only realistic way of
saving them from death by overdose. Dr Simpson is right to highlight the
problem. Official figures show 15 prisoners a year die within two weeks of
leaving jail. Unofficial figures put the death toll as high as one a week.
Every one of those statistics is, in reality, someone's son or daughter,
brother or sister, father or mother. If retox can prevent such heartache,
it might be argued, the policy is correct.

Retox may have an immediate benefit in keeping addicts alive during the
danger period when their bodies are becoming reaccustomed to drugs. In the
long term, however, retox is in the interests of no-one. An addict may
survive the initial few weeks out of prison, but after that the whole sorry
history of taking drugs and committing crimes to feed a habit is doomed to
repeat itself. Being realistic (as the Scottish Executive would like us to
be) that scenario ends in one of two ways - further imprisonment or death.

The public has the right to know more about this programme, and how it will
be evaluated, before backing can be given. If such desperate measures are
required then it is clear that the current services on offer are not
meeting the needs of the most persistent drug users. Other options, such as
half-way houses, should be explored. Being realistic about drugs should not
mean admitting early defeat.