DRUGS STRATEGIES OFFER SMALL HOPE

THE oratory was good and the sentiment fine. The Executive is to try
lateral thinking to tackle drug use and drug-related crime in Scotland.
Seizing criminal assets, reclassifying drugs and trying to use police time
better all make sense.

And yet. And yet.

It is not defeatism to recognise that while these strategies are wonderful
if they work, they are being deployed against odds that are greater than
ever before. There was a sense at the police conference yesterday that the
principles are fine, but that the practice will be fraught with difficulty.
How could it he anything else?

Deputy Justice Minister Richard Simpson was quite correct in stating that
authoritarian messages and finger-wagging at young people achieve nothing.
If only some of the chief culprits recognised that their sanctimoniousness
drives young people towards the very lifestyle that is so abhorred.

Dr Simpson was marginally less assured, however, when he suggested that
occasional shock tactics, such as last week's pictures of dead heroin
addict Rachel Whitear, were only a minor component in the anti-drugs strategy.

The pictures of Rachel were by far the most discussed issue in classrooms
throughout the UK last week. Teenagers at last had tangible evidence of the
effects of prolonged drug abuse and, as teachers now report, it worried
them and made them think.

In much the same way, the frank words of Paul Betts, father of ecstasy
victim Leah Betts, grip school audiences throughout the North and North-east.

Shock tactics do not win campaigns on their own, for the law of diminishing
returns applies eventually, but they are a far more valuable component in
the drugs war than Dr Simpson implied at the police conference.

Back them up with structured education which addresses teenagers as
capable, intelligent and streetwise, and at the same time track down and
prosecute dealers with renewed vigour, and this three-pronged approach has
at least some chance of stemming the tide.