Pubdate: Sun, 28 Oct 2007
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2007 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Author: John Bynorth

CALL TO ADOPT TOUGH NEW DRUGS STANCE

Goldie Seeks Fresh Approach To Scottish Epidemic

SENIOR SWEDISH politicians and drugs experts are to  meet with the 
Conservative leader Annabel Goldie and a  leading drugs professor to 
discuss how Scotland can  adopt Sweden's successful zero-tolerance 
approach to  the problem.

Members of the European Council Against Drugs (Ecad),  politicians 
and civil servants will hear a presentation  from Neil McKeganey, 
director of Glasgow University's  Centre for Drugs Misuse Research, 
about Scotland's  crisis tomorrow before meeting Goldie at Holyrood 
on  Tuesday.

McKeganey, who has long maintained the government's  harm reduction 
policies are failing Scotland's 50,000  heroin abusers, believes 
Sweden's hardline approach to  illegal drugs could be used in Scotland.

He told the Sunday Herald: "The Swedes cast drug use  very clearly as 
something which shouldn't occur, as  opposed to our government's 
position that we can only  reduce the harmful effects of illegal 
drugs. Every  other European country has simultaneously tried 
to  reduce the harm of continued drug use and the scale of  the 
problem. They have high-quality treatment available  immediately to 
all those who need it, but we have  incredibly meagre residential 
rehabilitation  resources."

McKeganey said the General Register Office for  Scotland's recent 
statistics - showing that deaths  linked to drug abuse rose by 25% 
last year, with 421  deaths, 85 more than in 2005 - proved that 
government  policies have failed. The highest previous figure was  in 
2002, when 382 died.

Sweden has only 28,000 addicts among its population of  nine million, 
and that figure includes all drug users.  It had a tolerant approach 
in the mid-1960s, but  reversed its policy when drugs became an 
epidemic in  the 1970s, according to Ecad director Tomas Hallberg.

Hallberg said: "We had the epidemic before many other  countries, so 
we've had longer to cope with it. It  shouldn't be controversial for 
people like Professor  McKeganey to talk about the difficulties of 
making  treatment easier for addicts."

Hallberg added that Sweden's biggest problem was  tempting addicts to 
take up their places at the  treatment centres, funded by regional governments.

Goldie, whose party has pledged UKP100m to fund  treatments, said: 
"Scotland has suffered far too long  from an epidemic of drug abuse, 
and I am trying to lead  the call for a new political will to tackle 
this  head-on for the sake of addicts, their families and  society."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart