Zero Tolerance Leads To 800 Expulsions A Year And Worsens Troop Shortage Fifteen British soldiers a week are being thrown out of the army for taking drugs, including heroin, ecstasy, cannabis and cocaine, figures obtained by The Observer reveal. Almost 800 troops were discharged last year after failing random drug tests. But, with British forces already stretched in Iraq and Afghanistan, some experts have cast doubt on the long-term viability of the Ministry of Defence's zero-tolerance approach to drugs and its compulsory expulsion policy. [continues 773 words]
Collapse Of 11 Year Old Sparks Row As It Emerges Sheriff Ruled Against Request To Place Her In Care The fierce debate over how best to protect children of drug addicts intensified yesterday after it emerged that a sheriff had rejected requests from social workers to place an 11-year-old heroin addict in care. As blame continued to shift between different agencies, a senior social work source told The Observer that the drug war's youngest victims were being failed because the law had shifted too much towards protecting the rights of parents at the expense of vulnerable children. [continues 359 words]
THE smell was unmistakable. As Patrick Matthews approached his front door, there was no doubt about what his 16-year-old son and his friends, who had not been expecting him back so soon, were doing to pass the time. When Matthews, a journalist and author of Cannabis Culture, made his presence known, his son held out the joint to him with a courteous nod. "It was a classic liberal parent's dilemma," says Matthews. "Do you make a row, express silent disapproval or take a friendly toke?" [continues 544 words]
DOCTORS in the Highlands are calling for local drug support services to be established as a matter of urgency after police confirmed there had been a significant rise in the availability of heroin in the area. The Herald reported last month GPs had written to the health minister requesting a share of funding to help them deal with a growing problem. Now, figures from police confirm a significant rise in heroin seizures. Northern Constabulary netted more of the class A drug in the first three months of this year than in the whole of 2001. Last year, they seized three times as much heroin as the year 2000. But the police were unable to give precise figures of how much heroin was involved. The number of drug offences has also increased from 1188 in 2000 to 1701 last year, the police said. [continues 456 words]
AN influential group of MPs will call for the decriminalisation of cannabis and the downgrading of ecstasy in an authoritative report to be published later this year, it was reported yesterday. MPs on the Commons home affairs select committee have carried out a seven-month investigation, at Downing Street's request, into the drug laws. It is understood the report will call for ecstasy to be downgraded from a class A to a class B drug, for the wider prescription of heroin on the NHS to addicts and for an end to prosecutions for possession of cannabis. The report came as the Department of Health publishes a consultation paper on cannabis derivatives being prescribed on the NHS to multiple sclerosis sufferers. [continues 246 words]
Scandals involving drink and drugs have dogged many in the circle of friends of Prince Harry and his older brother, Prince William. Last summer, Nicholas Knatchbull, one of the Prince of Wales's godchildren and William's "minder" at Eton, received treatment at a drug rehabilitation clinic. The previous year he had been arrested and questioned by police after he was found to be carrying a small quantity of cannabis. William's friend Tom Parker Bowles - another godchild and son of Charles's girlfriend Camilla - was exposed as a cocaine user two years ago. [continues 163 words]
Drugs laws in the UK should be radically overhauled and brought into line with those in Holland and Italy, according to a report published today by the country's leading drugs charity. DrugScope claims that the frequently-used argument that UK laws could not be relaxed without breaching international treaties is flawed. The report compares penalties for minor drug offences in Britain with those in six other European countries, and concludes that the government could fundamentally alter legislation without breaking United Nations conventions. In the report, European Drugs Laws: The Room for Manoeuvre, the charity urges ministers to punish all minor drug offences with civil penalties, such as fines, rather than imprisonment. [continues 468 words]
ANTHRAX could be responsible for the spate of deaths among heroin addicts in Glasgow. Scientists at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research at Porton Down, Wiltshire, found signs of the infection after testing the blood of two Scottish patients, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine. Public health experts in Glasgow last night confirmed they were considering anthrax as part of their investigations after 10 heroin addicts died and 15 were left seriously ill. The New Scientist report revealed that anthrax bacilli was found in the spinal fluid of a Norwegian addict who died in April after injecting heroin into muscle. [continues 511 words]
