We must spend more on educating youngsters about substance abuse We live in the age of the image. Just how important the image and its impact can be was aptly illustrated by the harrowing pictures of Rachel Whitear that appeared last week. Rachel was a 21-year-old student who became addicted to heroin and died of an overdose in a grotty bedsit. Her parents released photographs of her body, which was found three days after her death. They were horrifying. They depicted Rachel as she was discovered: in a crouching position, a syringe still gripped by her stiffening fingers. As readers looked at their morning papers, the messages came through loud and clear: Say no to drugs! This could happen to anyone! Just because you're a nice, middle-class girl doesn't mean you too couldn't end up in the grip of drugs! [continues 1132 words]
Shock tactics such as video campaigns which depict dead addicts do not stop young people from using drugs, a leading research body says. Last week, the parents of Rachel Whitear, a heroin addict, announced that a photograph of their daughter lying dead with a syringe in her hand would be used in an anti-drugs video. However, new findings from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Nida) in the US show that campaigns like these are a waste of money. The report from Nida found that large-scale public awareness initiatives, using posters and videos, have little impact. [continues 208 words]
The Government's drug adviser launched a damning attack on Eton College yesterday for a hard-line drugs policy it described as "seriously misguided". The rebuke to Britain's most famous public school comes in the wake of a decision to randomly drug test Prince Harry after the revelation he took cannabis last summer. The Prince, who is third in line to the throne, faces expulsion from Eton if he is caught again. Drugscope, a charity that advises on drugs issues and formulated the Government's drugs policy in state schools, said such a draconian policy could have a reverse effect and lead Prince Harry, 17, to take harder drugs. [continues 372 words]
The Government's drug advisers last night called on the Home Office to modernise drugs laws ahead of a new report highlighting the haphazard way they are applied. The call comes amid increasing evidence that policing of Britain's drug laws is in disarray - based more upon the whims of local police chiefs than the statute book. New research published in the spring by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the UK's largest social research charity, will highlight the hit-or-miss approach to drug enforcement taken by the police. [continues 611 words]
With barely a moment's pause, the debate about drugs has moved on from cannabis to ecstasy. The Association of Chief Police Officers, a body not noted for its liberal-mindedness, has called for ecstasy to lose its class A drug status and for the establishment of legal heroin injecting-rooms. It argues that ecstasy is less dangerous than other class A drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, and that injecting-rooms for heroin addicts would at least ensure that users received clean needles and informed health advice. [continues 305 words]
I could be the darling of the drugs tsar, one of his trump cards. I could be produced with a flourish for every anti-drug slot in the media, like Leah Betts's mother. I could be feted by Tony Blair, honoured by the Home Secretary. The agony I suffered when my student son was arrested and sent to prison could be used as another powerful message for young people to avoid the "evil of drugs". Look at all that pain you might cause your parents. If drugs don't kill you, you could be locked up for years, scarred with a criminal record for life. So, learn from my misfortune, listen to the tsar, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, your mother, and above all obey the law! [continues 1154 words]
Since the election we have truly seen politics on the move. Labour has advocated more radical private involvement in public services than even the most ardent Thatcherite would have dared. Michael Portillo has emerged as the "liberal" candidate for the Conservative leadership. To cap it all, Peter Lilley has called for the legalisation of cannabis. It is all a far cry from nearly two years ago when, in one of my first interviews as the newly elected Liberal Democrat leader, I confirmed my support for long-standing party policy on drugs - namely, that a royal commission should be established to examine all aspects of the issue. This led to loud headlines and an even louder condemnation from one Ann Widdecombe. [continues 1059 words]
In a good month, Ritchie can earn as much as a chief inspector of police. Their bank balances might be alike, but there the similarities end. The police officer enforces the law. Ritchie breaks it. As a cannabis dealer, Ritchie can earn pounds1,000 a week for selling a kilo of the drug, so long as he is not arrested first and his illicit wares seized from his basement flat in north London. His illegal trade can still put him behind bars for 14 years under the Misuse of Drugs Act. [continues 314 words]
What stirred the mind of William Shakespeare to such prodigious feats of creativity? The boundless vision of a natural genius, or something more exotic? Two South African scientists think they know the answer and are about to embark on a series of forensic tests to prove a case that will blow smoke in the eyes of traditional Shakespearean scholarship. Dr Frances Thackeray and Professor Nick van der Merwe believe that the man who bestrides the classical canon was not just a genius, but a very early pot head. [continues 551 words]
Legalisation of cannabis could save the taxpayer more than $1.6bn, MPs will be told in an independent report. And a new poll published today underlines the growing strength of support for the legalisation of cannabis, with 66 per cent in favour of making the drug freely available. The poll, which was carried out by MORI, also shows that 55 per cent of Britons support its sale through licensed government outlets. Tony Blair yesterday was resisting the growing cross-party demands for a Royal Commission on cannabis, but the report by the respected House of Commons library could undermine his stand. [continues 301 words]
The Runciman report last week showed that the Government's attitude to legalisation is about politics and not about sense Joan Smith During a live radio programme I took part in a couple of years ago, the panel was asked a question about drugs. I was sitting between a Labour MEP and a Tory frontbencher, both of whom said that discovering your child had smoked cannabis was every parent's worst nightmare. They even lowered their voices as they spoke, presumably to convey the gravity with which they approached the subject. [continues 1098 words]
One of the difficulties of democracy has always been the unwillingness of politicians to come clean with the electorate over their own pasts - - for fear of paying a price at the ballot box. From Michael Portillo's gay experiences to Clare Short's adopted child, politicians have a long history of trying to hide the most human sides of themselves. In the US last week the Senatorial hopeful Jack Robinson was forced by his party to quit the race after admitting that he'd once been arrested - for failure to pay a parking ticket. [continues 149 words]
In 1997 Tony Blair said that he would not consider decriminilising or legalising cannabis even if that were the recommendations of a Royal Commission. Since then, he has dismissed the recommendations of, among others, the House of Lords Select Committee, the Cleveland Police Authority, 2 chief constables in Scotland, Edward Ellison, ex-head of Scotland Yard's Drugs Squad, and now the Police Foundation. Ah well, at least he's being consistent. [end]
An analysis of Home Office figures exclusively obtained by the Independent on Sunday has shown huge inconsistencies in the way that cannabis smokers are dealt with by the police. Striking regional variations mean that offenders in some parts of Britain are eight times more likely to get a criminal record than in other, more lenient areas. Northamptonshire is officially the safest county in the UK to smoke cannabis, and Dorset the area where users are most likely to receive a conviction. [continues 670 words]
The Government is to tighten its policy on the way police and the courts treat cannabis users. The move will put the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary at odds with the "drugs tsar", Keith Hellawell, and Cabinet enforcer Mo Mowlam. Tony Blair and Jack Straw are determined to end the system, highlighted today in an exclusive survey by the Independent on Sunday, which allows police and magistrates in some areas almost to turn a blind eye to pot smoking, whilst in other areas tough sentences are imposed. [continues 360 words]
Senior government aides are concerned that Mo Mowlam's battle with a brain tumour has left her "without the intellectual rigour" to do her job. Ms Mowlam was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour in 1997. She subsequently underwent a course of radiotherapy. Within a short time of her treatment ending, she was appointed Secretary of Sate for Northern Ireland, insisting the illness had not affected her ability to perform her job. Last October she was removed from the post and instead of being made Secretary of State for Health, the job she coveted, she was made Cabinet enforcer, a post for which she made clear she had no enthusiasm. Since then there has been speculation as to her continued membership of the Cabinet. [continues 470 words]
Mo Mowlam was under pressure last night to clarify her position on legalising cannabis for medicinal purposes and personal possession after reports that she was at odds on the issue with Tony Blair and Jack Straw, the Home Secretary. Ms Mowlam, who last week admitted that she had smoked marijuana in the Sixties, is known to be "sympathetic" to proposals to decriminalise the personal and medicinal use of cannabis. But last night it was reported that the Cabinet Office minister was getting "absolutely nowhere" with Mr Straw and Downing Street, who see any legal change as "the tip of the iceberg" leading to pressure for the full decriminalisation of cannabis. [continues 483 words]
Keith Hellawell, the Government's "drugs tsar" has revealed that British scientists have been licensed to produce a new variety of cannabis - one that is almost totally free of the element that gives smokers a "high". The scientists have been granted permission to grow the drug at a number of secret sites in the south of England. The new, "safe" variety is manufactured by extracting the element that gives the "high". The aim is to produce a drug that can be used to treat a number of illnesses including multiple sclerosis. [continues 720 words]
An Inmate Writes Of The Daily Hell Of Life In Brixton Jail "Locked up for days on end without exercise, education or even library facilities, it's little wonder that inmates sometimes go off the rails. "Fights routinely break out, especially on A wing where a huge proportion of the inmates are heroin or crack addicts on remand. "This wing is under almost constant 'lock-down', its officers too stretched to be concerned about the filthy condition of cells where cold-turkeying addicts bang and wail through the night and violent prisoners bully and injure weaker cellmates for the pathetic currency of tobacco and spare food. [continues 233 words]
Last Monday Paul Boateng swept into Brixton Prison on an urgent visit. The prisons minister was not there for a photo-opportunity but to heed a desperate plea for help. This had come from the governor of the high security jail, in South London, after an alarming spate of suicide attempts. Once Mr Boateng had left, one prisoner sat down in his cell and wrote an impassioned letter to a close friend. In graphic detail, he described the grim reality of life for inmates and asked him to pass the letter on to the Independent on Sunday. [continues 534 words]
AFTER weeks of flying high in the polls, George W Bush has fallen to Earth with a bump, forced to address allegations that he once used cocaine. The man who hopes to succeed Bill Clinton as President is suddenly exposed as a political parvenu: his wings singed by an alliance of news-starved reporters and resentful Clintonites out for some vengeance of their own. Exactly one year after Mr Clinton was forced to admit that he had indeed had a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a suddenly defensive George W found himself pursued by reporters interested in only one thing: had he ever used cocaine? The directness of the question, and the reporters' persistence, caught the early favourite for the Republican nomination with his guard down. [continues 875 words]
IT RISES like a mirage in California's barren Mojave desert, a white stone vision of an ideal city - but for the intimidating rolls of razor wire piled up along the perimeter fence. This is America's newest and, at $100m (pounds 62m), most expensive prison - a 2,300-bed medium-to-high-security facility by the country's largest private prison operator. There is one problem with this glittering cage, however. It has no prisoners. The California City Correctional Facility opened two months ago. With the US's prison population soaring, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) built the prison in the confident belief that the justice system would take all the prison beds it could find. [continues 637 words]
ECSTASY is making a comeback among British clubbers who believe they have found a "safe" version of the drug - and also mistakenly believe that a herbal medicine for depression can prevent the brain damage associated with frequent Ecstasy use. Britain's largest health-food manufacturer, Holland & Barrett, has begun an investigation into the use of its herbal remedy 5-HTP as an "antidote". Senior staff are alarmed at the trend among drug takers to use 5-HTP. The firm's scientists say that if it is mixed with anti-depressants such as Prozac or even alcohol it can cause excessive sweating, muscle cramps, and in extreme cases death. [continues 355 words]
The sale of gas lighter fuel to under-18s will be banned, following a spate of deaths caused by young people sniffing butane. George Howarth, the Home Office minister, will announce this week that the Government intends to make it illegal for shopkeepers to sell the refills to youngsters. Trading standards officers will be given additional powers to prosecute retailers who ignore the new measure. Young people who want to buy gas lighter fuel would have to provide identification documents showing they are over 18. [continues 347 words]
Britain is emerging as the drugs production capital of Europe. For years it has led the way in the consumption of ecstasy, while Holland and Belgium have been the "market leaders" in its manufacture. But now criminal gangs have realised massive profits can be made from the manufacture and export of "synthetic" narcotics. Drugs officers working for the National Criminal Intelligence Service have found evidence that "synthetics" - chemically manufactured drugs - - are being transported from Britain to the US, a trade traditionally dominated by Dutch and Belgian dealers. [continues 390 words]
Having spent years believing ecstasy was non-addictive, thousands of young clubbers have discovered they are hooked. Drug agencies are reporting a massive increase in the numbers finding it impossible to stop taking "tabs". "Es" took Britain by storm 10 years ago and the first ecstasy generation, now reaching their late 20s and early 30s, are showing all the signs of addiction, especially psychological dependence. Caroline McDonald, of London's Core agency, said: "The drugs and the social scene has become the centre of their life. They're living just for that and there's nothing much else going on." [continues 452 words]
Like samizdat, the latest work of Winston "Explainer" Henry has been filtering through the streets of Port of Spain this weekend. He has yet to compose the music, nor has he made arrangements to record it. But for this calypso, it is the words that count. It is called "Hang Dem High" and you can tap your own beat. Use the hangman's rope as bowtie; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / And no lawyer can't ask me why; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / Don't mind how they beg and cry; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / Who loves to kill must not fraid to die. [continues 701 words]
Doctors yesterday issued a warning to women in Merseyside after a spate of alleged rapes in which women reported having their drinks drugged before being assaulted. About 12 women have reported being raped in Liverpool in the past few months, with a least four saying their drinks were "spiked". Three of the women, who are aged between 16 and 25, said they were assaulted after going into a "trance" while out drinking with friends during the Maybank holiday. In one case a woman said she woke up in a field to find a man sexually assaulting her. In another a woman said she began to lose her memory after one and a half glasses of wine. [continues 450 words]
The railway service between Swansea and Llanelli is not what it used to be. So just over two years ago, covering the general election for this paper, I found myself in a taxi travelling to the latter town, which is (or used to be) famous for tinplate and rugby. Beside the road was the blackened shell of a detached house which, in that part of the world, would be occupied by a headmaster or a bank manager. "What happened there?" I asked. [continues 1204 words]
Children from Kids Company, an after-school club in Camberwell, south-east London, suggested that while the state should provide help for addicts, the Government was out of touch with the reality of youngsters' drug use. Stephanie Lucas, 13, said that it was difficult to get young people to listen to advice: "Teachers used to tell us about drugs, but nobody listened. They just think the teachers are stupid. The Government should stop putting posters up. "The more they put posters up, the more people are going to do it - because people take drugs to show off and to behave badly. I know people who take cannabis. Then they'll move on to heroin and coke to show off even more." [continues 293 words]
Heroin and cocaine are the two key drugs identified in the Government's new strategy, which also aims to educate children about the dangers of abuse and provide better treatment. The "tough new targets" to tackle drug misuse in the next 10 years focus on a range of key areas: * Treatment - to increase the numbers in treatment programmes by 66 per cent by 2005 and 100 per cent by 2008. There are about 30,000 people currently being treated in the UK, and an estimated 200,000 abusers. [continues 236 words]
CRIMINALS who use drugs are to be sent into rehabilitation centres rather than prison as part of a government drive to halve the rate of reoffending among addicts, writes RACHEL SYLVESTER. Jack Cunningham, the Cabinet Office minister, will announce - in a Commons statement on Tuesday - tough new targets for cutting crimes committed by drug users as part of a drive to tackle the wide-ranging social effects of narcotics. He will say that the Government aims to reduce addicts' reoffending by a quarter by 2005 and by a half by 2008. [continues 252 words]
Russian and Chechen mafia gangs are infiltrating private flying clubs to smuggle in drugs. Customs and Excise officers are issuing guidelines to Britain's 220 clubs on how to vet new members, and ways to detect suspicious individuals trying to hire planes. Light aircraft schools and flying associations have also been alerted. The rewards for smugglers can be vast. Heroin, with a street price of UKP74 a gram, accounts for 80 per cent of all drugs seized from light aircraft. The gangsters also trade in softer drugs. Recently Dutch officers found 50 kgs of amphetamines and 15 kgs of cannabis in a pre-flight check on a Beech Baron aircraft hired in the UK. [continues 519 words]
Could the root of an obscure African plant contain the secret to combatting addiction? The search for a substance capable of breaking the chains of chemical dependency - the so-called "magic bullet" - is one of the enduring preoccupations of modern medicine. Most people have concluded that the search is a futile one - that addiction is a disease without cure. Yet a growing alliance of activists claim that conventional wisdom is wrong: there is a substance capable of ending an addicts' craving for a fix - it is called ibogaine, and it is said to possess miraculous powers of healing. [continues 4580 words]
THERE IS a place on the tiny Caribbean island of St Lucia where even the police, let alone tourists, fear to tread. They call it The Graveyard, a hillside shanty town on the slopes above the capital, Castries, which has become a hideout for criminals who can flee into its winding alleyways and melt into the night. The people who live inside are so poor that they built their homes on the top of the century-old tombs of colonial notables. [continues 763 words]
Last week, 14-year-old Martin had an important appointment with "high-ups" from the Prime Minister's Social Exclusion Unit. The unit is based in Downing Street but the officials wanted to see Martin on his home territory. A meeting was set up in less-than-salubrious King's Cross. As Martin approached his destination he was approached by a stranger. "He offered me crack. I'm black so he reckons I'm into drugs. He's lucky I was due at the meeting 'cos I felt like breaking his f---ing legs." [continues 738 words]
INSPIRED by the Pinochet affair, Cuban exiles in France want Fidel Castro tried there for alleged crimes including drug trafficking, writes Phil Davison. A French judge on Friday rejected their case, but is there any truth in the claims? US agents suspect President Castro may have condoned some cocaine deals before the mid-1980s, though to help his sinking economy rather than for self-gain, and may have turned a blind eye to others. But they say there is absolutely no evidence against him, and that he clamped down on trafficking in 1989 after the Panamanian strongman, Manuel Noriega, was indicted in the US for drug smuggling. General Noriega was later captured after an American invasion of his country and jailed in Miami for 40 years. [continues 327 words]
Lloyd's, the world's most prestigious insurance market, is creating a special unit to tackle drug dealers and vice barons trying to use the 300-year-old institution to launder their money. Last year, former Chancellor Ken Clark shocked the City of London by revealing that money laundering is now the world's third-largest industry. Lloyd's concedes it is vulnerable to the practice, dubbed "financial rape", because of its status as the best known insurance market in the world. [continues 368 words]
THIS photograph of a teenage boy shooting heroin in a Sydney street, helped by an older man, shocked Australians when the Sun Herald published it recently. The boy, 16, comes from a middle-class home in the city's suburbs. He is the image of Australian youth: fair-haired, fresh-faced, almost straight from Neighbours. His own neighbours describe him as a "good kid" with a talent for drawing. Andrew Johnson, a high-school dropout, lives with his parents in the outer suburb of Whalan. Once, dropping out of school in Australia would have meant hanging out with mates on surf-boards. The ocean's sharks were easier to dodge than the drug sharks who now lure teenagers with free shots that eventually get them hooked. [continues 404 words]
A FIRST WORLD WAR anti-aircraft fort known as the "Alcatraz of the North" is to become Europe's largest recovery centre for drug addicts and alcoholics. Standing at the mouth of the Humber estuary, between Hull and Grimsby, Bull Sands Fort was built in 1915 to bolster shore defences. Its developers hope it will be a place to bolster addicts' resolve to kick the hard drug habit. Clients will stay at the fort for 30 days, going through the traditional 12-step recovery programme established by Alcoholics Anonymous. They may then go on to rehabilitation clinics and further counselling. [continues 594 words]
Amphetamine users looking for a stronger "hit" are turning to a highly potent substance which is being linked to heart failure, psychotic problems and the spread of HIV and hepatitis. Drugs agencies are increasingly concerned by the growing popularity of the stimulant. Known by the street name of "paste", it is up to 20 times stronger than other forms of amphetamines. The grey-coloured sludge, which smells of solvents, is being produced from industrial chemicals in crude laboratories in kitchens and garden sheds. [continues 646 words]
A GROWING number of young people - especially women - are addicted to over-the-counter medicines which help them cope with the stresses of everyday life. More than 30,000 people in Britain are said to be hooked on drugs that contain opiates and stimulants which can be bought at high street chemists without a prescription. The typical addict is a woman in her twenties living in London who takes several bottles of cough medicine or large doses of painkillers to cope with everyday stresses. [continues 877 words]
The Royal College of Midwives, which is a key adviser to the Government on anti-smoking policy, has been directly investing in tobacco shares. The college, which helped the Government frame proposals on helping pregnant women to quit smoking in last week's White Paper on tobacco, owns hundreds of shares in Imperial Tobacco, which produces Embassy cigarettes. The disclosure comes as a severe embarrassment to the college since its members have been offering anti-smoking advice to mothers-to-be for years. [continues 282 words]
ONE of Britain's leading health charities, which has spent years campaigning to help people give up smoking, is investing in tobacco shares. The British Heart Foundation, which researches links between smoking and heart attacks, has invested its employees' pension contributions in a fund that makes money from tobacco stocks. An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that the foundation has placed over UKP6m of its pension assets in a fund that buys and sells shares in companies such as British American Tobacco, Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco. [continues 543 words]
The decision by Merseyside Police to test its employees for drugs is set to be adopted by all Britain's emergency services. Keith Hellawell, the Government's drug "tsar" believes that the fire, ambulance and motorway rescue services are all "safety sensitive" occupations that should introduce drug-testing immediately. Indeed, random drug-testing of all public employees is now being openly discussed in government circles. If imposed it would affect the huge sections of the population who are casual drug users. [continues 677 words]
A stack of dirty plastic bags, containing UKP1m and locked away in a Liverpool police station, may soon have to be restored to the suburban home where detectives investigating an organised crime syndicate triumphantly discovered them in a flower bed 13 months ago. The return of the bags, which are filled with assorted currencies, will be just another setback in a chronicle of frustration which illustrates why ministers last week announced new powers to seize criminals' assets without any need for criminal convictions. [continues 833 words]
The Government is to introduce tough new measures to curb underage drinking, following revelations that alcopops have been sold on the chocolate racks of corner shops. George Howarth, the Home Office Minister, is to recommend new action to stop children obtaining alcohol outside the home, in a report to be published next month. He is concerned that children as young as nine have been found drunk, after getting the sugary alcoholic drinks known as alcopops. The Ministerial Committee on Underage Drinking - which includes ministers from the Home Office, Department of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and DTI - will propose moves to make it easier for police and trading standards officers to clamp down on shops selling beer and alcopops to minors. [continues 348 words]
THE American tobacco industry, already battered by a torrent of litigation in courts around the country, is bracing itself for the start in Miami tomorrow of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of all smokers in Florida who are suffering from diseases related to their use of cigarettes. The defendants in the case, which could become a turning point in the industry's fortunes, include Brown & Williamson, a subsidiary of London-based British American Tobacco (BAT). Also on trial are Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, and RJ Reynolds. [continues 445 words]
The Government's ethical foreign policy has come under fresh fire from doctors, third world campaign groups and anti-tobacco lobbyists over the use of British embassies to promote cigarettes manufactured in the United Kingdom. They want the Government to ban British tobacco companies from using our embassies as a base to seek new markets, following a similar move by the United States. The US State Department, worried about the health implications of cigarettes, recently sent a confidential memo to its ambassadors banning them from promoting "the sale or export of tobacco or tobacco products". [continues 696 words]
Scientists at the United States National Institute of Mental Health released research results last week which show that taking cannabis could protect the brain from the damage inflicted by a stroke. The chemicals examined, known as cannabinoids, are believed to work independently of the more widely advertised euphoric effects of the cannabis plant. After experimenting in the laboratory on the brains of foetal rats, Aiden Hampson and his colleagues at the Washington-based federal institute found that some of the cannabinoids acted as a useful block to other more dangerous chemicals in the brain. [continues 348 words]
