Drugs are a bigger threat than terrorism, says expert They are, many believe, the statistics that say most about today's Scotland.
Fully 50,000 of this country's children are growing up in homes where there are drugs. Perhaps 100,000 more know an aunt, a brother or another close relative who is addicted.
These children are thought to be seven times more likely than the national average to develop a habit, a generational time bomb waiting to happen. Drugs are now so familiar it feels as if they have always been here. They haven't.
Less than 40 years ago, just as London and the South-east of England experienced the first wave of heroin, Scotland was effectively given the all-clear in a government report.
Professor Neil McKeganey of Glasgow University, Scotland's foremost authority on how narcotics are invading everyday life, said: "At the time that report was written the numbers of heroin addicts contacting drug treatment services in Scotland could be counted in double figures.
"Fast-forward 40 years and we find ourselves counting our drug users in the tens of thousands with around 12,000 starting drug abuse treatment every year.
"Scotland's heroin problem took off in the late eighties and in little more than 20 years has accelerated to twice the rate of the heroin problem in England. When you see something moving that fast you had better ask where it is heading. In the case of our drug problem the answer is pretty chilling."
The authorities believe they have started to keep the drugs industry under control. The overall number of known heroin users has been pegged back a few thousand in recent years and stands at 51,000.
Prof McKeganey, however, raises a more terrifying spectre: what happens if heroin use continues to rise at its historic trend of doubling every decade.
Heroin - and increasingly cocaine and new, stronger strains of cannabis - are already breaking out of the underworld. Many of the young men behind the bulk of violent crime are the children of the first great heroin epidemic in Scotland in the late 1980s.
In some parts of Scotland having a mother who is a addicted is no longer enough to warrant a child having his or her own social worker.
Prof McKeganey, however, warns it is not just children who are suffering. Any increase in the drugs industry will now start to eat into the very fabric of our society, our economy and politics, he believes.
He said: "There are millions of pounds being made each year from trade in illegal drugs in Scotland.
"The money from that trade often leaves Scotland to pass through numerous banking systems in other countries before returning as investments in legal enterprises.
"As this sequence unfolds we face the prospect at some point of being unable to distinguish between the legal and the illegal economy.
"At that point the drugs trade will have truly won respectability and permanence.
"What you might ask comes after the successful economics of the drugs trade? The answer is politics."
That, Prof McKeganey believes, makes drugs a bigger threat to Scotland than international terrorism.
12:46am Monday 2nd April 2007  Print  Email this  CommentPosted by: Derek, Norwich on 9:07am Mon 2 Apr 07 So all in all, the policy we've had towards drugs for the past 40 years has been a resounding failure on just about every level. That policy of course is the "war on drugs" - prohibition. 40 years is just about how long we've had the miserable "misuse of drugs act".
We're now perhaps waking up to the damage the war on drugs has done, it's created the very monster it was set up to prevent, a monster which didn't exist when the war on drugs was created.
So what are we to do? Now we know the policy doesn't work, do we scrap it or do we throw more money at it in the hope that it's only gone as wrong as it has because we didn't throw enough money at it in the first place?
Drugs will continue to blight our society until we end this stupid unwinnable war and start to regulate and control the market. It really is time to wake up and smell the coffee - or is it the crack?
Derek So all in all, the policy we've had towards drugs for the past 40 years has been a resounding failure on just about every level. That policy of course is the "war on drugs" - prohibition. 40 years is just about how long we've had the miserable "misuse of drugs act".
We're now perhaps waking up to the damage the war on drugs has done, it's created the very monster it was set up to prevent, a monster which didn't exist when the war on drugs was created.
So what are we to do? Now we know the policy doesn't work, do we scrap it or do we throw more money at it in the hope that it's only gone as wrong as it has because we didn't throw enough money at it in the first place?
Drugs will continue to blight our society until we end this stupid unwinnable war and start to regulate and control the market. It really is time to wake up and smell the coffee - or is it the crack?
Derek Posted by: Steve O, Partick on 10:15am Mon 2 Apr 07 Yet another non-sensical headline grabber from Scotland's self-appointed drugs 'expert'. Anyone who knows anything about drugs use prevalence in Scotland - that is, those without a self-publicising, egotistical agenda - is aware that numbers of problem users is now beginning to stabilise. The 51,000 that Prof. McKeganey refers to has recently been revised, down from 53,000. As with most of his disingenious scaremongering, this is just another example of how he uses data to suggest something that isn't actually the case.
As for the 'international terrorism' analogy, this is really quite outrageous, and I think the Professor should be made to retract this completely irresponsible and unmeasurable claim. For a so-called Professor to continually indulge in this type of hyperbole and misinformation is not only disappointing for those of us who wish for a serious informed debate on drugs and alcohol use in our society, but completely reactionary and objectionable. Yet another non-sensical headline grabber from Scotland's self-appointed drugs 'expert'. Anyone who knows anything about drugs use prevalence in Scotland - that is, those without a self-publicising, egotistical agenda - is aware that numbers of problem users is now beginning to stabilise. The 51,000 that Prof. McKeganey refers to has recently been revised, down from 53,000. As with most of his disingenious scaremongering, this is just another example of how he uses data to suggest something that isn't actually the case.
As for the 'international terrorism' analogy, this is really quite outrageous, and I think the Professor should be made to retract this completely irresponsible and unmeasurable claim. For a so-called Professor to continually indulge in this type of hyperbole and misinformation is not only disappointing for those of us who wish for a serious informed debate on drugs and alcohol use in our society, but completely reactionary and objectionable. Posted by: Diane, Glasgow on 12:11pm Mon 2 Apr 07 Professor McKeganey, as usual, with a very slanted view of things. Pity he never comes up with productive solutions to problems. Foremost authority? That depends on who you talk to! Professor McKeganey, as usual, with a very slanted view of things. Pity he never comes up with productive solutions to problems. Foremost authority? That depends on who you talk to! | 
