Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jul 2006
Source: Scotland On Sunday (UK)
Copyright: 2006 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/405
Author: Eddie Barnes, Political Editor
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

ADDICTS WILL HAVE TO AGREE TO KICK THEIR HABIT BEFORE THEY HAVE 
CHILDREN UNDER THE NEW PLAN.

DRUG addicts will be told not to have children until they kick their 
habit under a controversial plan being considered for Labour's 
election manifesto.

A paper obtained by Scotland on Sunday suggests addicts sign a 
'social contract' requiring that - in return for benefits, methadone 
and housing - they agree "not to start a family" and to end their habit.

If addicts agree to the contract but then breach it by having a 
family they face having their children taken into social work care, 
as well as the withdrawal of treatment and benefits.

The draconian measures are being considered as Labour MSPs respond to 
a series of tragic cases where children have died as a result of 
neglect by drug-addicted parents.

As many as 60,000 Scots children currently live with parents with a 
drug problem, frequently causing irreparable damage to their 
education and life chances.

Ministers recently declared they would not shirk from placing such 
children in foster care, but Labour is now preparing to go much 
further in the war on drug addiction, rolling out measures described 
by opponents last night as "vicious".

The plan to stop addicts starting families, or having more children 
if they are already parents, has been drawn up by influential 
backbench MSP Duncan McNeil, who is convener of Labour's 50-strong 
parliamentary group.

It has received a sympathetic response from several of his party 
colleagues. It will now feed into Labour's manifesto preparations 
ahead of next year's Holyrood elections.

In his paper, McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, declares: "If 
the state undertakes to provide social security benefits, free drug 
cessation services, free housing, free health advice, free medicines 
and free social and other support services, then the recipients 
[would] undertake, for example, to enter a drug cessation programme 
with a strict programme in which they will become drug free; to 
submit to regular drug testing; and not to start a family."

The paper declares: "An element of compulsion, currently lacking in 
drug treatment services, would need to be introduced."

McNeil told Scotland on Sunday: "Having a family while you are coming 
off drugs or on a drug rehabilitation programme is absolutely mad. We 
should be using every means possible to dissuade people [in this 
situation] from starting a family."

His plan suggests following an American scheme whereby female drug 
users were given cash to take long-term contraceptives, such as 
injections. "Some countries have said we will give additional 
payments for contraception," McNeil added. "That should be looked at. 
At the moment, all we are doing is giving people all this support and 
saying it doesn't matter if you carry on taking methadone for 20 
years. People who pay the bills will not accept that."

McNeil said he also wanted it to be made easier for children to be 
removed from the homes of drug-addicted families.

The radical plan comes after a series of shocking cases involving the 
children of drug- addicted parents. In one appalling incident, 
Alexandra King, a three-month-old baby in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, died 
of septicaemia brought on by nappy rash after being neglected by her 
drug-addicted mother.

Meanwhile, the parents of Derek Alexander Doran, from Elphinstone, 
East Lothian, have been charged with murdering their two-year-old son 
by giving him the heroin substitute methadone.

More than 300 babies are born addicted to heroin and other illegal 
drugs every year in Scotland.

Research by the Glasgow-based Centre for Drug Misuse research has 
shown that 60% of drug-addicted mothers and 85% of addicted fathers 
no longer looked after their children.

Double the number of children live in drug-addicted families in 
Scotland than in England.

While McNeil's views are by far the most outspoken within the Labour 
camp, his call received backing by other Labour sources last night. 
Plans to force addicts to sign a contract in which they pledge to get 
off drugs by a set time are backed by ministers and are likely to be 
introduced.

A Labour insider said: "Duncan is on the extreme end of the debate, 
but there is a lot of sympathy for his position. The party will go 
some way towards the areas he is talking about."

Another insider closely involved in drawing up the party manifesto 
added: "People do take seriously some of these ideas."

Fellow Labour MSPs are also supporting McNeil's demand for tougher 
action in taking children away from chaotic homes.

Backbencher Karen Gillon said children should be removed more quickly 
from homes where addicts were failing to show signs of improvement. 
"You have got to give kids the best chance and sometimes that is not 
going to be by staying with mum and dad," she said.

McNeil's plan is just one of several other proposals being considered 
by Labour. They include offering free tuition to children of drug 
addicts who are being neglected at home.

McNeil's call was supported by Scots Tory leader Annabel Goldie. She 
said: "I am pleased that at long last someone from the Labour party 
has woken up to the spiralling drug problem in Scotland and the 
current Executive's abject failure to do anything about it."

However, a spokesman for the Scottish Drugs Forum said: "There is a 
vicious tenor to these proposals. What's proposed dehumanises people 
who are in need of help and support simply because their problems are 
seen as too difficult and complex for society to deal with."

Stewart Stevenson, drugs spokesman for the SNP, added: "These 
proposals are totally unacceptable. What we must be focusing on is 
helping addicts get free of their addictions, not dictating to them, 
which might make them more reluctant to turn to their only source of 
help in the first place."

But McNeil said: "We need to remind people that we are not about 
trying to sustain them on a life of drug abuse, but to get people off 
drugs. People need to be told that we expect something from them. We 
expect something for their children."

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said ministers supported plans 
to make contraceptive advice more freely available to addicts.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman