STEVEN ENGLAND, who claimed to have a secret stash of dope in his pocket, was at the head of the queue when Scotland's first cannabis cafe opened yesterday. Mr England, 24, was one of about 50 customers who filed into Purple Haze, a former greasy spoon in Edinburgh, which has been transformed with a coat of lilac paint into a private club for cannabis users. Outside two uniformed police officers stood at the door handing every customer a letter stating that downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug did not make it legal. [continues 375 words]
THREE pupils have been expelled from Fettes College in Edinburgh for taking drugs. The sixth-form boys were asked to leave the independent school, where Tony Blair was a pupil, after two separate incidents in the same week. A spokesman for the school confirmed that two boys were found with cannabis at a sixth-form party last Saturday and that another, aged 17, had failed a drugs test after a business studies trip to Belgium. Michael Spens, the headmaster, said that school regulations on the issue of drug misuse were widely understood. "These pupils have been very foolish and they have been punished. For them this is a personal tragedy," he said. [continues 114 words]
SCOTLAND'S first American-style drugs court, which aims to break addicts' cycle of crime, opens in Glasgow today. The court will offer nonviolent offenders the option of being sentenced to treatment orders, a tough system of assessment and rehabilitation designed to help them to stop offending. Offenders have been given a warning that the specialist court will not be a soft option. It will have the power to impose some of Europe's toughest sanctions on addicts. Only people whose addiction can be linked to their offending, typically stealing up to UKP 400 a week to fund their habit, will be eligible. It is expected that the court will handle 150 to 200 cases a year. [continues 489 words]
A HOUSEWIFE from Orkney is filling Belgian chocolates with cannabis and sending them to Multiple Sclerosis sufferers around the world. Biz Ivol, 53, who suffers from MS herself, grows her own supply of cannabis which she makes into a powder and adds to the melted chocolate. She claims that her sweets help alleviate the painful symptoms of MS. Since embarking on her project Mrs Ivol has had requests for her cannabis chocolates from Finland and the United States. The demand has persuaded her to apply to Orkney Islands Council for a business grant to buy a sweet-making machine and a triple-glazed greenhouse to grow her cannabis plants. [continues 462 words]
A ONE-YEAR-OLD boy was recovering in hospital yesterday after swallowing some Ecstasy that he found in his mother's handbag. The boy, who remained conscious, was admitted to the Sick Children's Hospital in Edinburgh, after his mother retrieved two partially chewed tablets from his mouth. Last night a spokesman for the hospital said that his condition was stable and improving. A drugs expert said that the boy's life had probably been saved by the swift removal of the Class A drug from his mouth and by his mother's immediate admission to ambulance staff that he had taken Ecstasy. [continues 291 words]
Hugh McCartney moved into the two-room flat on the virtually derelict estate near the Celtic football ground in the East End of Glasgow about two years ago. The son of Ian McCartney, the Cabinet Office Minister, lived in one of four council tenement blocks that have been listed for demolition. IRA graffiti were daubed at the entrance to the flat. The unkempt front garden was strewn with litter. Steel shutters outnumbered windows. Most of the blocks in the surrounding streets have been boarded up or wrecked by vandals. [continues 397 words]
OVERCROWDING in Scottish jails may be coming to an end, the Chief Inspector of Prisons said in his annual report yesterday. But Clive Fairweather gave warning that drugs and violence related to drug debt had become the central problem for jails. In what was his first report for the Scottish Parliament, Mr Fairweather said his findings did not lead him to conclude, as he had feared some years ago, that the drug problem was out of control. But drug taking and the violence it can lead was the central problem for Scottish prisons, and might partly account for a disproportionate rise in prison suicides. [continues 342 words]
A group of leading doctors have become the first medical professionals to call for cannabis to be legalised for recreational use. The doctors, from the British Medical Association's Scottish committee on public health medicine, believe that a change in the law would help to control the spread of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. They will put forward a motion at the BMA's annual conference in Belfast next month asking for the organisation's support in their campaign to have the drug legalised for "medical and recreational use". [continues 103 words]
