GRIEVING FATHER'S LEGALISE DRUGS PLEA

A WRITER whose son died after taking heroin has told MPs all drugs
should be legalised.

Fulton Gillespie, from Burwell, near Newmarket, told a House of
Commons home affairs select committee the only way to stop more people
dying in the future was for the Government to take control.

"I'm not advocating the use of drugs, I'm saying they should be
legalised so they are in our hands and not the criminals," he said.

Mr Gillespie's son Scott died of an accidental overdose in February
2000, at the age of 33. His body was found at a friend's house in Ipswich.

A pathology report put his death down to the drug being "toxic" and Mr
Gillespie said if the heroin had been supplied legally, it would have
been pure and Scott would still be alive.

"There are very few things in life that concentrate the mind like the
death of a child. Heroin has no long-term side-effect. What makes it a
killer is not the drug, it is the criminalisation of it," he added.

"The law is there to stop drug supply, but it's unenforceable and not
working. We should take it out of the hands of criminals and if we
want to control supply, we have to be in charge. At the moment the law
hands UKP 6 billion into the pockets of criminals."

Mr Gillespie said Scott had first started using drugs when he had been
at school and became a heroin addict in the past three or fours years
of his life.

He joined other parents whose children have suffered from heroin and
other drug abuse in addressing the select committee inquiry into the
drug laws.

A journalist with four other children, Mr Gillespie described Scott as
a "hell of a nice boy" and a "sensitive soul".

"I'm not screaming for people to agree with me about this. I just want
them to think about it," he said.

"Just because you think your child's not involved, don't think you're
not affected - you are paying for a criminal system that doesn't
work.

"Drugs affect everyone. Sixty-one per cent of people who are in prison
are there for drug-related offences. My son, who wouldn't hurt a fly,
was stealing to feed his habit."

Mr Gillespie said he had received a positive reaction to what he had
said and hoped to see politicians take a different approach to drugs
in the next few years.

It is expected the committee's report, to be published later in the
spring, will endorse a more liberal approach to the drug laws.

"Some people think there is this massive amount of disaffected youth
who would go and take drugs if they were legalised, but it's nonsense
- - all the people who want to take drugs already are," claimed Mr
Gillespie.

"Drug users are patients, not criminals. The whole thing is a public
health issue, not a criminal matter."