Pubdate: Sun, 24 Dec 2006
Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Sunday Herald
Contact:  http://www.sundayherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873
Author: Judith Duffy
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

FORMER POLICE CHIEF ATTACKS POLITICIANS FOR 'CULTURE OF TOLERANCE' OVER DRUGS

A FORMER SCOTTISH police chief has accused politicians of failing to 
tackle the drugs problem by allowing the development of a "culture of 
tolerance".

Dr Ian Oliver, former chief constable of Grampian Police, said that 
government in the UK had taken an accepting approach to drugs by 
advocating harm-reduction measures such as needle exchanges and 
methadone maintenance.

And he has argued that there should be major public information 
campaigns on drugs and better education on the subject in schools in 
order to foster an attitude of intolerance towards drugs in society.

Oliver, who has also acted as an independent consultant to the United 
Nations on drugs, is the latest figure to enter the debate over the 
use of harm-reduction measures, such as methadone, in tackling the 
drugs problem.

Last week it emerged that Labour are preparing to adopt a tougher 
drugs policy in their manifesto for next year's Holyrood elections, 
with addicts urged to try abstinence rather than methadone.

Oliver, who has just published a new book entitled Drug Affliction, 
claimed there was a lack of public awareness of the devastating 
impact of drugs on society, as many people were not directly involved 
in the problem.

"The reality is that for the past 20 years we have more or less just 
sat back and let the problem get out of control," he said. "A lot of 
that has been cultural tolerance and acceptance with people who are 
now working in government, local authority and so on, who have grown 
up in a world where drugs are there.

"They don't see them in quite the same way as people of my 
generation, who lived in a world when they weren't there."

He added: "We have got this mad approach to drugs - we are supposed 
to be anti-drugs, according to our national drug plan. Yet time and 
time again the government talks about harm reduction, needle 
exchanges, methadone maintanence and retoxifying prisoners."

Oliver said he believed methadone should only be used as a treatment 
and not as maintenance to try to stabilise addicts' lives.

He said: "As a police officer, I never came across anyone who was on 
methadone who wasn't also on a street drug and using it as a crutch.

"Just leave them on the drug for 20 years and it is actually more 
addictive than heroin."

He called for more investment in facilities to treat addicts, but 
argued that initiatives such as high-profile public health education 
campaigns and improved education in schools were also required.

"It is part of the skills to living that we need to be teaching," he 
said. "But it isn't only the kids - it's parents and grandparents and 
professionals who need to know about these things," he said.

His comments last night met with a mixed response from politicians 
and drugs charities.

Tory leader Annabel Goldie also backed a preventative approach, 
describing the drug problem as a "cancer that has been eating away at 
our society for far too long".

"Prevention, rather than harm reduction, is the key and that has to 
start with education in our schools, eradicating drugs from our 
prisons, cracking down on those who deal in death and rehabilitating 
users to stop the spiral of crime and addiction," she said.

But Stewart Stevenson, deputy justice spokesman for the SNP, argued 
there was no real evidence that public information campaigns worked.

"It certainly is important that we put more effort into schools, to 
educate kids about the dangers of drugs," he said. "But broadly based 
advertising on the subject is not likely to deliver very much that is of use."

He added: "The bottom line about drugs is that it is closely 
associated with deprivation, and until we tackle social deprivation 
in many of our communities Scotland will continue to have serious 
drugs problems."

David Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, the national 
drugs policy and information charity, said that while the notion of a 
drug-free society was laudable, it was "simply not achievable".

"The United Nations has a target of a drug-free world by 2008 and, 
sadly, it is advisers such as Dr Oliver who have led them down this 
totally unrealistic route," he added.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said it had increased 
overall investment in drug treatment from UKP12.3 million five years 
ago to UKP23.7m this year. She added that drugs education is now in 
place in 99% of schools.

"Clearly, stopping young people getting involved in drugs in the 
first place is where any drugs strategy begins," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman