IT'S TIME FOR PLAIN DEALING ON DRUGS

Do you think this new fashion for telling it like it is amongst Tony's
cronies could catch on?

First there was Foreign Office minister Peter Hain, who's supposed to be
subtly promoting the Blair line on the EU gravy-train, going off the tracks
and admitting that British railways are the worst in Europe.

Then there was Lord Barnett, the peer formerly known as Joel, the Treasury
Minister who produced the financial formula, or carve-up, which bears his
name. He said the job of Secretary of State for Scotland was redundant.

Is it hoping for too much, do you think, to open the paper each morning and
search for a similar true story on the Government's policy on drug use and
abuse?

Probably, because too many prominent politicians would have to eat their
words if the Home Secretary or the Health Secretary admitted that Labour's
drugs policies have failed.

Just as the railways are now seen to be providing the worst service in
Europe, so Britain has the worst record on dealing with drug use.

The figures on drug-related crime continue to rise, prisons are rife with
all sorts of drugs, deaths from overdoses are much higher than in
continental Europe, and the age at which drugs are first used is lower than
in neighbouring countries.

Yet the Government's strategy on drug use is confused or secret, or both.

What is the intention in spending millions on Drugs Action Areas, on
support groups, self-help groups, school education programmes, TV public
service advertising, rehabilitation units and publicly-funded organisations
like Scotland Against Drugs?

Is the aim to obliterate all drug use, including alcohol and tobacco, or is
there a level of tolerable drug use, once again including booze and baccy?

One thing's become more obvious since poor Prince Hal's admission of being
a regular sort of guy. It's not only young people who judge booze to be a
bigger danger to the achievement of health and happiness.

The reaction to the news of the young prince's drinking and cannabis use
has shown that parents are more concerned about the effects of drink.

As you'd expect from this government of cutting-edge thinkers, now that
there's less possibility of a parents' revolt at the polls should cannabis
be re-classified, David Blunkett has led from behind . . . and placed
responsibility on the police officer on the beat for determining whether
someone caught in possession of cannabis should be cautioned, and have his
or her supply confiscated, or arrested and charged with having the intent
to supply others.

Emboldened by this piece of buck-passing, the Home Secretary is now
reported to be open to the suggestion by the Association of Senior Police
Officers in England and Wales that people caught in possession of heroin,
cocaine and Ecstasy should not be prosecuted as at present, but should be
given the option of rehabilitative treatment.

So far, so nearly good. The two weak points are firstly, that it's a bad
move to make police officers act as judge and jury or decide who should be
charged, and who should walk free.

Secondly, even though imprisonment is unsuitable, there aren't nearly
enough treatment centres to cope with people who would be jailed under the
present policy.

Drug classification is a power that's reserved for Westminster, but
policing and health policies are the responsibility of the Scottish
Parliament. Through political cowardice, Westminster probably won't
reclassify any drugs apart from cannabis, if that. The result of that will
be to prolong the strategy-free limbo of the present laws on drug use.

I'm still trying to persuade my fellow MSPs to have a commission set up by
the parliament to investigate drug use in Scotland so that we can agree on
some strategic aims against which the millions spent on combating drugs
could be measured.

Without knowing why Prince Harry, or the vast majority of the teenagers in
our own families, don't progress to hard drugs, and in most cases, stop
using drugs other than alcohol, it's impossible to construct a workable
policy for coping with drugs, to avoid the law looking like an ass and the
rest of we social drug-takers looking like hypocrites.