Situation Today

Scotland has a drug problem. Of that we can be certain. Less certain are solutions we have tried. People using drugs have been counselled or treated or rehabilitated. Consignments of drugs have been intercepted: sometimes people go to jail: police seek to uphold the law on the streets but also to assist in steering young people from drugs.

None of us would claim that these measures have been unqualified successes.

That's bad enough if we were operating in a neutral enviroment - negative behaviour on the one hand and efforts to correct this on the other, as with burglary for example. But with drugs this is not the case. A 'third force' is at work, promoting the free right to drugs, or even, in extremis the right to free drugs!

'Harm Reduction' is a dishonest title for a process which seeks to facilitate drug use at the expense of the rest of society. This process has nothing to do with the sort of intervention which drug workers have traditionally practiced on a 1-1 basis with known users seeking to bring their lives under control. 'Harm Reduction' is a philosophy delivered to all, whether they are users or not; it seeks to loosen control and validate drug use. This tactic even pervades our schools 'drug education' system in covert propaganda for drug libertarianism.

It would be easy to cave in under all this pressure, but for many of us - and that includes Drug Free Scotland -  the healthy development for society for ALL is more important than legitimising the instant gratification of a few.

There is a solid evidence of how to put the drug problem into reverse. Not just theory but practice, proven by evaluation over many years. The answer is Prevention (sometimes known as primary prevention).

This is not to say that responsive systems such as counselling, treatment, rehabilitation and the customs/legal system should be jettisoned. Rather what is needed is an intergrated system of 'prevention and response' involving all these initiatives across the whole community, together with businesses, religious groups, youth and adult social systems and more.

Government has promoted these in their current paper on "Tackling Drugs" and have responded to our challenges by adding a serious questionnaire at the end. This is a start.

contact - bc.anubis@googlemail.com