The two-year-old who mimes how to make a heroin "wrap" at nursery is a disturbing but timely reminder of just how vital it is that we get drugs policy right. A re-evaluation of drugs policy was one of the measures won by the Conservatives in return for supporting the SNP's Budget. The Tories' view is that rehabilitation programmes leading to complete abstinence will be more effective than long-term methadone prescriptions. The announcement of a review by Audit Scotland on the effectiveness of the money spent on different drugs services, therefore, is a welcome step that should provide some objective measure of different policies, which tend to polarise opinion.
Fergus Ewing, who, as Minister for Community Safety, has responsibility for drugs policy, thinks methadone should be available along with "more opportunities" such as drug testing and treatment orders in courts. For those to be effective, places in treatment centres have to be available, but they are expensive and only successful when addicts are committed to coming off drugs. With an increase in drug-related deaths last year (which included 97 deaths from methadone), the evidence is that our current policies are not succeeding. Prescribing liquid methadone to heroin addicts is an effective method of reducing the harm to their health from injecting illegal drugs, while also reducing the harm to the wider community from them stealing to pay for their habit. However, with only 3% of addicts drug-free after three years on methadone, it scarcely makes a dent in tackling the problem of drug dependence.
A proper evaluation of the effectiveness of the £12m a year we are spending on methadone is needed urgently, but there must also be agreement on what a drugs policy should achieve. The future of the drugs courts, piloted in Fife and Glasgow by the previous administration, is under review, along with other specialist hearings. Although re-offending rates were high, the offenders involved had fewer convictions than in the previous two years. There is no simple answer to dealing with drug abuse and drug crime without a clear picture of how well different strategies are working. The investigation by Audit Scotland of the effectiveness of the millions of pounds spent on anti-drugs services is welcome, but it will only be the "watershed" hailed by Annabel Goldie if it is followed by programmes that prevent more lives being blighted by drugs and more toddlers regarding packaging heroin as normal.
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