It was with a combination of both amusement and fear that I read the comments of Ms Janice Jess -- 'Heroin addicts being turned into zombies' (Evening Express, May 16). Amusement because this woman is so very wrong. Fear because someone, somewhere may read her ludicrous diatribe and believe it. Methadone is the most prominent treatment for opiate addiction because it is the most effective. I have been on methadone for some time now and the benefits are fantastic. I have a good job, I wear nice, clean clothes and ride an expensive motorcycle. No one would know that I am on methadone save that I tell them. [continues 52 words]
In the biggest single enforcement operation in the history of Strathclyde police, detectives and uniformed officers seized enough heroin for 7,000 drug deals yesterday in a series of dawn raids. About 500,000 of drugs and stolen property were seized after more than 200 officers were drafted in for Operation Caesar. Thirty-eight people were put behind bars - the most arrested in such raids. The raids, which were concentrated in the north and south of Glasgow, took weeks of surveillance and planning. Police said that last night more arrests would follow soon. [continues 523 words]
Sir, - I write in response to your articles, "Far fewer Scots women must be jailed, says report" and "Behind the Vale of tears" (11 May). SACRO (Safeguarding Communities Reducing Offending) welcomes the fact that the minister for home affairs, Henry McLeish, directed that the prisons and social work inspectorates for Scotland should review and make recommendations about community disposals and the use of custody for women offenders in Scotland. We hope the report will be acted upon, and particularly the statements that "almost all women offenders could be safely punished in the community without any major risk of harm to the general population", that "less than 1 per cent of women sent to prison are violent offenders", and also that "up to 52 per cent of female prison sentence admissions are fine defaulters". [continues 180 words]
Sir, - I find it incredible that the Prison Service cannot keep drugs out of prisons. Talking about drug-free wings and rehabilitation, and not taking such a hard line on soft drugs: has the world gone mad? Surely, the whole system should be closed down and started afresh, under new management and staff, if it has reached the point that drugs are so freely available that an addict can maintain his habit, or, worse, someone can go into prison who is not a drug taker and come out an addict. How can there be any drugs whatsoever in a prison? Where are they getting them from? David Gibbon Mayfield Road, Edinburgh - --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett [end]
The seven recommendations for the Scottish Office on women offenders 1. Enable more women to be released on bail to await trial, rather than remanded in custody at Cornton Vale THE PROBLEM: On any given day, a quarter of the population of Cornton Vale - about 55 prisoners - is on remand. Such prisoners are a very vulnerable group, and five of the seven deaths have been among them. They are often far from home, withdrawing from drugs and anxious about their children and future. Courts tend to choose remand instead of bail when women are drug abusers with chaotic lifestyles and no stable home address. [continues 653 words]
ITS authors admit there is not a single new idea in the report Women Offenders - A Safer Way, which was adopted by the Scottish Office yesterday as the blueprint for punishing women in future. Yet it was hailed by criminal justice professionals as the most radical document in recent penal history. Its radicalism is to start from the premise that women are different. They offend less often and less violently than men. They react with more distress to being fined and locked up in prison, because they have less money and bigger family responsibilities. They take drugs for more emotional reasons, to blot out the heartache of abuse and mental illness. And so it only makes sense for them to be punished in different ways. [continues 728 words]
There has been a steep rise in the number of young men in Scotland dying from tongue, mouth and throat cancers, which are linked to smoking and drinking. The number of men between 35 and 39 dying from these cancers has risen by 400 per cent since 1970-74. Cancers of the oesophagus and larynx in young men have also increased. The trend is revealed in a study published yesterday in a supplement of the 'British Journal of Cancer' outlining the incidences and deaths from cancers in Scotland. The study, funded by the Cancer Research Campaign (CRC), says deaths from lung cancer in yonug men are falling, although they are increasing in older women. [continues 421 words]
What is the best way to reduce the number of women jailed for minor crimes? Criminal justice policy in Scotland stands at a crossroads and the man who has to decide which route to take is the home affairs minister, Henry McLeish. Ahead lies a straight, broad path leading to the building of more prisons to hold the increasing number of women being jailed by the courts in love with the idea that prison is a deterrent. England has already departed along that road. Judges there are jailing women so fast that the prison service has ordered 1,100 extra spaces - the biggest expansion in female cell space since the Second World War. [continues 1392 words]
A WATERSHED report due out this week is expected to recommend that far fewer Scottish women are jailed, after seven hanged themselves at Cornton Vale prison, near Stirling. The report will put the Scottish prisons minister, Henry McLeish, on a collision course with his English colleagues over the issue of the imprisonment of women. Clive Fairweather and Angus Skinner, Scotland's chief inspectors of prisons and of social work, are expected to recommend that far more women are diverted from jail towards drug rehabilitation, probation and community service. [continues 776 words]
Doctors tell of struggle to cope as Aberdeen suffers big rise in numbers using hard drugs Doctors in Aberdeen are struggling to cope with a huge surge in demand for help from drug addicts, some as young as 14. One inner-city practice has had a 100-fold increase in the number of people requiring treatment in just five years. Addicts outside the GP network are having to wait up to ten months to be seen by the city's only dedicated drug abuse service. [continues 731 words]
Call For Action To Stave Off 'Road Safety Nightmare' As Drink Blitz Starts Frank Urquhart and Karen Mcveigh POLICE should be able to stop and test drivers for drug abuse, a senior officer said yesterday. As Scottish police forces launched their Christmas drinkdriving campaign, Supt Alistair McLuckie, the deputy head of Strathclyde Police traffic department, said that the increasing abuse of illegal and prescribed drugs by drivers was a potential road safety nightmare. Special training to combat the growing menace is needed by both police officers and casualty surgeons, he said. [continues 770 words]
A SHERIFF has criticised the Scottish home affairs minister Henry McLeish over suggestions that the courts are failing to sentence enough criminals to community service orders. Sheriff James Farrell said yesterday it was "strange" that the Government should say sheriffs were underusing the instrument, when a drugs offender could not start a CSO in Edinburgh for eight weeks because of the waiting list. Yesterday Sheriff Farrell said it was "very unsatisfactory" to be told by social workers that David Nicolson, 22, a drugs offender, could not begin his 160hour community service order for up to eight weeks because of "current high demand". [continues 566 words]
MARGARET COOK, the estranged wife of Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, today calls for the pharmaceutical industry to be nationalised. She said that doctors should be freed from commercial pressures, possibly by banning drug representatives from hospitals and doctors' surgeries. Writing exclusively in The Sunday Times, Cook, a consultant haematologist at St John's hospital in Livingston, has presented the case for a central "watchdog committee" comprised of professional bodies' representatives to monitor drug development. [continues 221 words]
JENNY BOOTH Home Affairs Correspondent THE Scottish home affairs minister, Henry McLeish, has called on judges, sheriffs and fiscals to reconsider their attitudes to punishment in a radical review which would keep lowlevel offenders out of prison while jailing murderers and sex offenders for longer. Scottish Office ministers have already started talks with the Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie of Blackhall who is ultimately in charge of prosecutions and with the Lord President, Lord Rodger, Scotland's most senior judge, on new approaches to punishment. [continues 850 words]
"Drugs are pulling Scots into the depths of despair. The only way to help addicts is to take their problems seriously regardless of the substance they're addicted to. I live with someone who is addicted to to the socalled "soft drug" cannabis.When we sought help,we were told that money was only available to whelp those addicted to hard drugs Cannabis wrecks lives,and more experts should recognise this." [end]
Opinion Time to face reality of drugs Editorial comment IT IS only right that the casual, unbelievably callous murder of five year Dillon Hull in Bolton should concentrate minds on the problem of drugs. The child's death is the vilest of metaphors for the carnage being wrought among the young by an epidemic that has resisted every curative campaign and is only now receiving honest debate. Illegal drugs mean vast amounts of black money. Fortunes in untraceable cash mean organised crime. Noone, anywhere in the world, has managed to suppress the appetite for narcotics. Does this mean that the "war" against them is lost before it has begun? [continues 753 words]
The vicious hold drug barons have on Scottish jails is being weakened by the growing number of prisoners who are setting up drugfree areas in an effort to kick their habit. Almost half of Scotland's prisons have now created drugfree zones where inmates can try to 'stay clean' without being offered, or pressurised into taking, illegal substances. Around 500 of the country's 6,100 prisoners are already living in drugs nogo areas. If the areas prove successful, they could stop criminals from reoffending, cut drugrelated crime and help reduce prison overcrowding by helping addicts to lead stable lives free of crime upon release. The areas may also curb the violence which has led to a frightening level of attacks stabbings, slashings and even murders involving prisoners in drugrelated feuds. [continues 612 words]
THE Government was accused of going soft on crime yesterday, after it decided not to insist on life sentences for repeat violent and sex offenders in Scotland. The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, told the House of Commons yesterday that rapists, abusers and thugs will face a mandatory life term in England and Wales if they repeat their crimes. But in a parliamentary written answer, the Scottish Office home affairs minister, Henry McLeish, said that Scotland would not be following suit. Mr McLeish said that the Scottish legislation that enshrined the "two strikes and you're out" policy had been watered down in its final stages, leaving it to the trial judge to decide whether a life sentence was imposed. There had been no such watering down of the Crime (Sentences) Act for England. [continues 672 words]
The government's own drug advisors have joined the growing chorus of criticism of Scotland Against Drugs. The allparty campaign, which has received UKP4m of public money, has been reprimanded for its "unhelpful" approach to combating drug abuse. This latest broadside against SAD has come from the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse, the team of experts which helps the Scottish Secretary draw up drugs policy. A majority of the group's members have written to Donald Dewar warning that: "It is our belief that Scotland Against Drugs has been, to say the least, unhelpful in assisting the development of an efective response to drug use in Scotland" a damning verdict on an initiative planned as a countrywide antidrugs "crusade". [continues 440 words]
In the US, 50 federal agencies nozzle up to the war on drugs' teat every year to the tune of upwards of $50bn. Try to tell those agencies that the war on drugs accomplishes nothing. No doubt Scotland, as welll as the rest of Great Britain, has a similar impediment to rational discourse. Those of us engaged in a continuing effort to bring back rationality to the drug use and abuse debate thank you and Alan Cochrane's contributions towards that end. [continues 657 words]
Inside Scotland
