Scotland's largest police force yesterday reported the first rise in crime for seven years, prompting fears that it could herald a nationwide trend. The latest annual figures compiled by Strathclyde Police show overall crime increased by 4.5 per cent last year, with notable rises in violent crimes. The statistics follow year-on-year decreases in Strathclyde since 1992, and a similar downward trend has been reported by the country's other seven forces. Chief Constable John Orr, discussing his annual report, blamed a lack of funds for leaving his force under-strength and claimed 350 more officers were needed for a full complement. [continues 585 words]
Call For Action By Townspeople In Scotland's 'Smack Capital' As Addict Numbers Soar The explosion in heroin use in the town described as the "smack capital" of Scotland is worse than previously feared, it was disclosed yesterday. One in five men aged 21 who are registered with the main medical practice in Fraserburgh are heroin addicts. A conference on drug abuse in the fishing town was also told that one in seven women of the same age is also hooked on the opiate. [continues 618 words]
"HAPPY hours" are under threat from Glasgow council, which is considering banning cheap alcohol promotions in the city's pubs. Alcohol campaign groups believe that happy hours encourage binge drinking. However, the council would have to seek the approval of the Scottish parliament for a by-law to enforce the ban. Alcohol campaign groups hope this could lead to Scotland-wide legislation banning happy hours. Councils in the west of Scotland are campaigning to put licensing issues on the parliament's agenda. Glasgow council has been joined by ten other licensing authorities in lobbying MSPs to strengthen the licensing powers of councils to give them more control. [continues 503 words]
Top Policeman Says Young Dealers And Loan-Shark Victims Need Help To Beat Their Problems A senior police officer yesterday called for a national amnesty for schoolchildren who are dealing in drugs or find themselves the victims of peddlers and loan sharks. Chief Superintendent Stewart Davidson called for the radical action in an attempt to curb the growing influence of dealers in Scottish schools and to free pupils from their grip. Mr Davidson said there was increasing evidence that children as young as 12 were too frightened to go to school because they owe money to pushers. He called for the setting up of an intermediate agency and a phone helpline to enable youngsters to shake off the menace of dealers. [continues 962 words]
Police Battle To Contain Spread Of Drug In Capital Heroin is becoming a major problem among the middle classes as well as the less well-off, it has emerged after a record haul of the drug in Edinburgh. One kilogram of the class A drug, believed to be worth up to UKP400,000 in street value, was recovered in a police operation. Senior police officers believe the seizure - the biggest single haul in Edinburgh - shows how serious the heroin problem has become in the capital. It is also being seen as proof that a growing number of people from all backgrounds are switching from so-called soft drugs such as cannabis to heroin. [continues 607 words]
Sir, - I strongly object to the assertion in your report (23 April) that I retracted an earlier statement on the decriminalisation of cannabis, which I made at a conference in Edinburgh. I did not retract, I explained. What I explained was that a speaker had said that it was time for a fresh look at the cannabis issue, and said it might be time to decriminilise its use. In asking a question, I had agreed it was time for a fresh, comprehensive look at drugs legalisation, with nothing ruled out and nothing ruled in. I believe this because the main legislation governing dangerous drugs is nearly 30 years old, and society has moved a long way in the interim. A reassessment is long overdue. [continues 259 words]
Poor Youngsters Who Die From Heroin 'Matter Less' Than Victims Of Ecstasy SCOTLAND cares less about poor youngsters overdosing on heroin than it does about middle class youngsters who die after taking ecstasy, the chief executive of a leading anti-drugs charity has claimed. Netta Maciver, of Turning Point Scotland, said that society cared more when a better-off, middle class youngster died after taking ecstasy than it did about youngsters from poor and socially-deprived backgrounds who were addicted to heroin. [continues 696 words]
Editorial comment IS one drug abuser's life worth more than another's? Our moral sense says no. Whether you take your text from Jesus' example in befriending prostitutes and curing lepers, or from Rabbie Burns's assertion that "a man's for a that", the message is the same: we are all equal. By this token, the death of the teenager, Leah Betts, after taking ecstasy is no more tragic than the deaths of the 80 people from heroin overdoses in Strathclyde last year. [continues 319 words]
Amelia Hill on legalising cannabis BROWNIE Mary, the woman responsible for the recent transformation of America's drug laws, died last week. The 77-year-old grandmother was an unlikely catalyst for the partial legalisation, in 1996, of marijuana in California, but her influence forced a revolution that we in Scotland have yet to confront. Mary Jane Rathburn was a strikingly ordinary woman who lived alone in a small flat in San Francisco. She retired, at 60, from her job as a waitress and began baking cakes for the young men dying of Aids in her local hosptal. [continues 802 words]
Senior police officer yesterday called for the Scottish Parliament to re-examine society's attitudes toward cannabis. Mr Tom Wood, deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, told a major drugs conference in Edinburgh he hoped Scotland's future politicians would seize the opportunity to tackle an issue which political parties had previously dodged. He said they had failed to show either the "stomach or the courage" to take up the challenge. "Individuals who have brought up the subject have been severely lambasted by the party leader," Mr Wood claimed. [continues 461 words]
Deputy Chief Constable Says His Comment Showed Support Only For Further Debate ONE of Scotland's most senior police officers yesterday supported calls for the legalisation of cannabis, only to issue a retraction within hours. Speaking at a conference on crime and substance abuse Tom Wood, the deputy chief constable of Lothian and Borders Police, endorsed an unequivocal call by a police board convener for the drug to be made legal. Councillor Pat Chalmers, who heads the Grampian Police Board, told the meeting in Edinburgh that society had only succeeded in alienating young people by its policy of condoning alcohol and tobacco while cannabis was criminalised. [continues 827 words]
THE Tory pary yesterday said it wanted to create a "drugs-free Scotland" within the next two decades. The Scottish Conservatives' deputy leader, Annatel Goldie, set the target at a press conference in Glasgow yesterday at which her party reinforced its "zero tolerance" policy on drugs. Miss Goldie, described by the Tories as the party's "drugs supremo", said that tackling the drugs plague in Scotland was one of the most urgent tasks facing the Scottish parliament. She said that the Tories were committed to introducing minimum sentences for convicted drugs dealers, to overhaul the way the legal system deals with serious drug offences through fast-track prosecution; and not to allow bail for those changed with drug dealing. [continues 374 words]
SCOTLAND'S drugs policy must be "user-friendly", the Scottish Liberal Democrats said yesterday. The emphasis had to be taken away from punishment and switched to rehabilitation. Jim Wallace, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, fired a broadside at the Government's approach, saying it was based on soundbites, not solutions. A nationwide string of rehabilitation centres should be created to keep drug offenders out of prisons, he said. However, Mr Wallace was accused of being soft on drugs by rival party leaders, who have identified the issue as a key election battleground. [continues 608 words]
SCOTTISH chief constables were last night accused of "staggering complacency" for believing police procedures already complied with human rights legislation and did not need to be reformed. Andrew Brown, the chief constable of Grampian, said yesterday he believed police in Scotland did not do anything that breached the European Convention on Human Rights. But John Scott, the convener of the Scottish Human Rights Centre (SHRC), described Mr Brown's comments as disappointing. "This is staggering complacency and It is difficult to believe they could maintain a straight face while they were saying all this," he said. [continues 427 words]
A SCOTTISH drug enforcement agency will be in place by the end of the year to "wage war" on the relentless rise in drugs crime, Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, announced yesterday. The Government promised to invest A36 million in training and equipping 200 extra detectives to catch drug dealers and importers, doubling the specialist police manpower to combat drugs at a national level. Crime figures reveal that drugs offences have more than quadrupled in the past decade, from 7,000 to 31,500. [continues 769 words]
POLICE are passing on an anti-drugs message to children, by using cartoons on the Internet. Tayside Police have set up a fast-loading drugs information website, featuring two interactive cartoon movies The site, accessed on www.drugsaware.net, has already been nominated for an award for its innovative design. Tayside Police community officer Sergeant Fergus Storrier said: "We see great importance in targeting information at people that is easy to access. "The site carries the phone numbers of useful contacts and also numbers people can use to report drugs-related crime." [end]
THERE are two things worth spelling out immediately about the latest drugs scandal blighting British athletics. Firstly, that were Dougie Walker a surly working-class black sprinter from Brixton rather than an amiable middle-class Scot from a douce Edinburgh public school, he would unquestionably not have been treated with such kid-gloves and hush-hush mentality as displayed by his national federation last week. And secondly, that whatever the layers of smoke-screen and obfuscation devised by Walker's defence team to fight his positive dope tests, he's already joined the long list of sporting competitors whose name is inextricably linked with cheating. [continues 964 words]
ASSETS seized from wealthy drug barons may be used to help addicts kick their habit as part of a new attempt to drive criminals out of business. Home affairs minister Henry McLeish is setting up an 'enforcement group' including officials from the Lord Advocate's office, the courts, the police, procurators fiscal, and the Scottish Office, to see how confiscation laws can be strengthened, particularly in the civil courts. McLeish wants the group to look at the possibility of using the millions seized from dealers to be used to help people recover from drug addiction. [continues 239 words]
CUSTOMS officers have seized what is thought to be the biggest haul of smuggled tobacco in Scotland. The surveillance operation which began in England netted five million cigarettes, the equivalent of 250,000 packets. A team from the Customs and Excise National Investigation Service (NIS) had been following developments after a container ship docked at Felixstowe in Suffolk and they eventually intercepted the load in Granton, Edinburgh. Eight people have been arrested and one man has been charged and released on bail. [continues 283 words]
THE Government's drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, was yesterday forced to defend Government policy as Fife's chief constable warned alcohol was a greater menace in Scottish society. During the launch of a drive to raise awareness of alcohol problems with school-age teenagers, Chief Constable James Hamilton said alcohol abuse was a far greater problem than drug abuse. Its effects were spread over several decades in contrast to the short-term effects of drugs. Last week, Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, said drug abuse was the greatest evil facing society. [continues 480 words]
THE Government has headed off criticism that it is going soft on drugs by announcing a zero tolerance policy towards all forms of illegal drug-taking in Scotland. The Scottish home affairs minister, Henry McLeish, said yesterday that taking an ecstasy tablet in Edinburgh was just as illegal and unacceptable as selling heroin in Glasgow's Easterhouse. Both put profits in the hands of the dealers responsible for the pills sold at the gates of schools, said Mr Meleish, speaking at the launch of a six-month campaign against drugs and housebreaking in Strathclyde. [continues 500 words]
Drug Tests Under Review THE CHIEF Inspector of Prisons in Scotland, Mr Clive Fairweather, no longer believes that drugs will overwhelm the jail system. He stated this yesterday while calling for a more focused anti-drugs policy in Scotland's jails. With the more coherent drugs strategy being developed by the Scottish Prison Service, he was hopeful that a lot could be done in the future to reduce the number of prisoners returning to the Community with drug habits which led to more crime. [continues 505 words]
SCOTTISH prisons should be doing more to stamp out heroin abuse and send former addicts back into society drug-free, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Clive Fairweather has warned. In his annual report, Mr Fairweather called for jails to launch a concerted campaign against the "more corrupting" drugs such as opiates. Mandatory drugtesting (MDT) has revealed heroin use behind bars is twice as high in Scotland as in England. Mr Fairweather recommended that suspected heroin users should be targeted for testing and given stiffer penalties than cannabis uses when caught - a policy already adopted south of the Border. [continues 421 words]
A PERTH couple were continuing a bedside vigil at Perth Royal Infirmary yesterday, as their teenage daughter fought for her life in intensive care - the latest alleged victim of the dance drug Ecstasy. Eighteen-year-old fitness fanatic Julia Dawes has received round-the-clock treatment since a friend's birthday night out on the town turned to tragedy. The teenager fell critically ill after celebrations which ran into the early hours of Saturday morning and was rushed to hospital. Her devastated parents, Alan and Jacqueline Dawes - owners of the Hanovers health club in Perth's George Street - were by her side yestereay as a team of doctors fought to save her life. Her condition was described as "critical." [continues 297 words]
Police have condemned "reckless" drug dealers after children playing on waste ground discovered 1,000 Ecstasy tablets. Four young boys discovered the tablets - with a street value of UKP10,000 - in Greenock, near Glasgow. The children did not touch the drugs, but led a local woman to the find, and she alerted police. Detective Sergeant Jim Mimnagh of Strathclyde Police said the dealers had acted in a "totally irresponsible and reckless manner" in hiding drugs there. The boys, aged from eight to 10, were digging and playing on waste ground when they found the securely wrapped haul. [continues 237 words]
Families and friends of heroin users are being urged to press home urgent warnings about a potentially lethal batch of the drug. Strathclyde Chief Constable John Orr said users were not aware that unusually pure heroin was being sold in the west of Scotland. He said that because of the lifestyle of many users, they had not seen warnings on TV or in newspapers. It is believed the heroin is partly responsible for the rising toll of drug-related deaths in the Strathclyde force area this year. [continues 239 words]
It took the death of a 13-year-old boy from heroin to arouse the people of Cranhill to reclaim the housing scheme's mean stairways and corridors from the drug dealers. The trade in heroin, amphetamines and cannabis was quite open and often backed by violence. To youngsters here, picking their way past a hollow-eyed figure injecting heroin in a tower-block corridor was commonplace. This week's Home Office survey warning of a heroin epidemic among teenagers was no shock to Cranhill, where for years parents have warned their children not to pick up needles or "sweeties" but felt powerless to fight back. [continues 805 words]
A TEENAGE girl lost her fight for life yesterday, three days after taking ecstasy at a friend's birthday party. The parents of 18-year-old Julia Dawes took the decision to switch her life-support machine off after a scan confirmed specialists' fears that her brain was dead. The fitness instructor's and subsequent death bore similarities to the circumstances of Leah Betts's death in 1995, who died at her 18th birthday celebration at the family home. Miss Betts's father, Paul, who has campaigned to raise drugs awareness last night renewed his appeal to parents to become fully informed of the potential risks and speak openly with their children. [continues 728 words]
Muddled approach to epidemic means drastic rethink needed to save lives THE man charged with leading the country's battle against drugs has admitted there is no coherent policy to tackle the current epidemic of deaths. David Macauley, director of Scotland Against Drugs, says a total review of government pilicy is urgently needed to try and stem the appalling number of fatalities. And yesterday he was supported by SADs chairman Sir Tom Farmer who said the 1.5m extra pledged by the government to fight the drugs menace in Scotland was not enough. [continues 924 words]
THE tragic death of another young girl from an ecstasy overdose last week brings into sharp focus, once more, the fact that Scotland has a drugs problem which is defying all attempts to defeat it. However, the death of 18-year-old Julia Dawes must surely prompt us to look yet again at what, precisely, we are doing to tackle this menace in our society. Today, the leaders of the organisation which is supposed to be in the vanguard of this operation - Scotland Against Drugs - complain that they are being frustrated by a lack of a coherent national policy on combating drug misuse and call for tougher police action against dealers and for the appointment of a drugs tsar operating exclusively in Scotland. [continues 235 words]
THE parents of a teenager who died after taking the dance drug ecstasy have spoken publicly for the first time about their daughter's death. They warned other parents of the dangers their children face when they experiment with drugs. ''Parents know they have children going to bars and clubs just like Julia did last Saturday night. "They know their dear lovely children can be foolish, they can succumb to peer pressure, they can be vulnerable and they can die,'' said the teenager's mother. [continues 178 words]
THE statistics on drug misuse in Scotland make grim and depressing reading. To quote almost exactly from the latest Scottish Office report, drug use continues to be most common among those aged 16 to 25. One of the most serious concerns is the age at which people are starting to misuse drugs. A recent survey has revealed that 11 per cent of pupils in their first year of secondary school were taking drugs and the figure rose to 57 per cent by the fourth year, over 1 per cent of whom were using heroin. The statistics are frightening and every parent should he aware that no child is safe from exposure to drugs. They are ubiquitous. [continues 515 words]
Ecstasy campaigners tell of theit dismay after Perth teenager loses her fight for life THE father of Leah Betts, the 18-year-old who died after taking an ecstasy tablet in 1995, said yesterday he planned to move his family from England to Scotland because of stronger community ties which provided a better foundation for combating drug problems. Paul Betts said he had been impressed at the positive reception he had received at a series of school talks he had given in Scotiand, after being largely ignored in his native Essex. [continues 452 words]
Paisley MP demands answers from customs over failed 'sting' after 54th death by overdose The anti-drugs campaigner MP Irene Adams is to demand a government inquiry into whether a failed customs 'sting' is responsible for a massive increase in drug-related deaths in the west of Scotland. On Friday David McCracken, 26, died in a house in Ferguslie Park Avenue in Adams' Paisley North constituency, the 54th person to die of a heroin overdose. Police claim that a batch of super strength heroin may be responsible for the spiralling increase in drug deaths. Two kilos of heroin went missing in a bungled operation aimed at netting major drug dealers in Scotland and England and is believed to have been circulating in Glasgow. [continues 583 words]
Scottish scientists are helping police crack down on drug barons through a technique which can pinpoint the exact source of illegal narcotics. A team of forensic scientists at Lothian and Borders Police are perfecting a method of fingerprinting drugs so they can trace where they were grown. Researchers believe the results could help customs offidais to monitor the shipment of heroin, cocaine and cannabis around the world, and cut off supply at source. The force's head of forensic science, Dr. Allan Jamieson, said yesterday that researchers were analysing drug samples with an electron microscope. [continues 171 words]
Scottish prisons have a drugs problem that is far worse than those in England, according to random tests earned out on inmates. An average of roughly 20 per cent of English and Welsh prisoners are testing positive for drugs in their bloodstream, but in one of Scotland's jails the proportion is as high as 46 per cent. It is also believed that heroin is a much bigger problem in Scottish jails than in English and Welsh prisons, where only 4 per cent tested positive for opiates last year. In Scottish institutions, heroin use is believed to be three times as high. [continues 326 words]
Penal reformers have welcomed possible signs of a shift in attitude among sheriffs in response to the spate of Scottish prison suicides, after a young mother escaped a jail term for smuggling drugs. Dawn Howie, 22, who works as a nanny in Bearsden, Glasgow, was sentenced to 300 hours' community service yesterday after she admitted carrying UKP650 of heroin into Perth prison hidden in balloons in her underwear. A first offender, she had been pressured to smuggle in the packages by her prisoner boyfriend after he was stabbed in the jail. [continues 560 words]
UKP1.1m initiative announced after deaths of five inmates in ten days THE Government yesterday launched a UKP1.1 million initiative to tackle Scotland's spiralling jail suicide rate following the worst spate of deaths in the prison service's history. New measures to identify and help prisoners at risk of killing themselves were announced yesterday by the Scottish home affairs minister, Henry McLeish, after the deaths of five inmates in ten days. Mr McLeish signalled moves to extend the availability of non-custodial sentences, including electronic tagging and new drug treatment orders, which he predicted judges and sheriffs would take up. [continues 809 words]
Improved coaching and facilities would be a bonus, but we must address young people's attitude in Scotland towards drugs and alcohol. Teaching how to play with smaller balls on smaller pitches may improve skills but not necessarily attitudes. David A Balfour, Aberdeen [end]
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]
Inside Scotland
