Pubdate: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 Source: The Scotsman Contact: http://www.scotsman.com Author: Jenny Booth Home Affairs Correspondent JAIL UNIT WITH HALF INMATES ON DRUGS Shotts Induction Centre Tops Prison Abuse League DRUG barons, murderers and the most dangerous prisoners in Scotland are relaxing in their cells with heroin and other hard drugs. More than half the 50 inmates at the maximum security National Induction Centre, a separate unit within Shotts prison which only takes prisoners serving eight years or longer, are showing positive for drugs in random mandatory tests. The rate of positive tests is half as high again as other maximum security jails and more than twice as high as at Scotland's largest young offender institution, Polmont. NIC inmates are testing positive for opiates rather than for soft drugs such as cannabis, it is understood. The NIC governor, John Gerrie, confirmed: "It is true, we are over 50 per cent. "It is not entirely surprising, given that a large number of our prisoners have been involved in illicit drug activities and that they are all starting out on very long sentences. "Some of them are facing more than two decades in prison and won't even be considered for liberation until well into the next century. They're going through all kinds of adjustments, as they start to realise what this long sentence means to them and to their families." Mr Gerrie added: "We are not being complacent, far from it. "What we want to do is to introduce an addictions worker, to inform them about the harm they are doing to themselves with drugs and reinforce that is important to stay healthy." Drug-taking is rife in Scottish prisons, although most inmates only have access to minute quantities of drugs smuggled in by family and friends, much of which has been heavily "cut", or diluted with flea powder and other impurities. In Aberdeen's Craiginches jail, where a prison officer had his throat cut by a prisoner on Monday, Kitkat chocolate bars have been withdrawn from sale because inmates were using the silver paper to "chase the dragon", the slang term for smoking heroin. But the level of positive tests at the NIC is nearly twice as high as in other prisons. In Perth, a maximum security jail which takes some long-term prisoners, positive drug tests are understood to be 35 per cent. In Polmont young offenders institution, where all the prisoners are under 21, fewer than a quarter of inmates are testing positive. Full details of the drug test failure rate at all Scotland's jails are due to be published by the Scottish Prison Service next month. Long-term prisoners will spend an average nine months in the NIC at the start of their sentences, being assessed and analysed and put through various intensive courses, before they are sent on to Perth, Glenochil or Shotts main jail to serve the rest of their sentence. They include west coast drugs barons who have made a fortune from their illegal trade and international drugs smugglers. The normal penalties for being caught taking drugs have little meaning for them - docking up to two weeks prison pay, at UKP6.50 a week or adding a maximum of 14 days to a 20-year sentence. A prisons insider commented: "If your release date is April 2018, it is not going to make much difference to you now if you are getting out two weeks later. "People serving life sentences have no idea when they're going to get out and the idea their sentence is going to be extended by a very few days is really not the issue. "We tell them if they are not going to kick their drugs habit they are going to have a hard time in prison, as they put themselves at the mercy of the people who supply drugs." A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said that there were now moves to introduce weekend drugs testing, to clamp down on the syndrome of prisoners getting high during the extra long hours they spend locked up on Saturdays and Sundays. Till now prisoners have only been drug tested during the week. Rumour has it that many inmates are switching to heroin at weekends, secure in the knowledge that it leaves no trace in the system after a couple of days. Cannabis lingers in the body for up to six weeks. The spokesman added: "A lot of the drugs problems at the NIC is the nature of the prison. "Mr Gerrie is dealing with virtually every high profile prisoner in Scotland. He has got some very, very difficult and unusual people in his jail. A lot of them are the major drug dealers." A report on the NIC by Scotland's prisons inspectorate is due out tomorrow.