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Ministers Declare 'War on Drugs' is Over
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
By Neil Mackay
Home Affairs Editor

Special Report One: Drugs
No more 'Just Say No' campaigns ... instead, harm reduction, rehabilitation and information will be the policy

The Sunday Herald
This weekend Scotland's drugs minister has officially declared that the 30-year war on drugs is over. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald, Dr Richard Simpson, also the deputy justice minister, said: “The only time you will hear me use terms such as 'War On Drugs' and 'Just Say No' is to denigrate them.”

Instead Simpson has pledged to ensure that Scotland's harm-reduction, methadone, and rehabilitation services are fixed.

Simpson, who was a prison doctor, said: “I've never used the term 'teach children how to take drugs,’ but what I would say is that we need to provide them with information. We need to say 'we'd rather you didn't take ecstasy, but if you make that decision, here are the risks.’ We have to give them all the information they need to take responsibility for themselves.

“It's not about us wagging a finger at young people as they won't pay attention to that -- so it's not worthwhile. We've got to be very realistic and not say 'you're going to die if you take ecstasy,’ what we will say is 'some people do die when they take ecstasy but we don't truly know why.’”

He said that “we can't pretend that we're going to stop the availability of drugs” or people using drugs, and the concept of 'Just Say No' had therefore been abandoned for good.

In an another interview, the UK pensions minister Ian McCartney, whose son died of a heroin overdose because he was not given methadone in jail, told the Sunday Herald: “It wasn't a prison sentence he got, it was a death sentence. There is no sense to the current system. Going to jail harmed my son and did nothing to address the cause of crime.”
(More: The Sunday Herald News Source)
2002 © Sunday Newspapers, Ltd.

Dan