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If there is one thing that prison officers and inmates agree on, it is that in prison drugs and violence are inseparable. And there are many people who believe the country's prisons are awash with drugs.

The situation in one prison was revealed on Tuesday, when Gordon Hacker, a former prison officer at HMP Rye Hill in Warwickshire, was sentenced to four years for conspiring with inmates to smuggle in drugs. He tipped off inmates about the best times for drugs to be thrown over the perimeter wall, and in doing so helped supply prisoners with heroin, ecstasy and cannabis.

It is not the first time problems have been exposed at Rye Hill. In April a separate Panorama investigation showed inmates attempting to groom an undercover reporter to become a smuggler, prison officers discussing being left in pairs to deal with about 80 inmates, and a female officer being openly threatened by an inmate. But it is the prisoners themselves who are most at risk.

Over one six-month period, a former female prison officer at Rye Hill, who wished to remain anonymous, saw the aftermath of a string of threats and brutal attacks, most of which she says were drug-related. She saw one man so terrified by a threat he would have his eyes stabbed out by a dealer, that he climbed onto the prison roof to retrieve drugs thrown over the prison wall. She said: "He knew the consequences of what he was going to do, and he was out in a month's time. He got put on segregation and he had time put on his sentence."

Another inmate was found lying on the floor of his unit with his lip hanging off, and one inmate was beaten by a sock filled with cans of tuna. "I didn't even recognise him," she said.

The list goes on. Last Christmas she said an inmate almost died after having his throat cut open, and in yet another incident, she walked into a cell to find a prisoner hiding under the bed, refusing to go back to his own cell for fear of being stabbed over a drug debt on the way there.

She said: "You are supposed to be looking after them. I personally would never want to be a prisoner in there because if something is going to happen to you, it's going to happen."

Rye Hill is not unique. A 2005 Home Office report into drugs in six local prisons estimated that between 30% and 60% of inmates were using heroin, and that "the majority of prisoner/ex-prisoner interviewees agreed with the statement that the trade in drugs is the major cause of violence between prisoners".

Earlier this month, the independent monitoring board for Wandsworth prison in London, the biggest in Britain, reported that "the continuing trafficking of drugs and mobile telephones in the prison exacerbates the problem of bullying, and threatens the safety and well being of prisoners".

The report lists numerous ways inmates manage to smuggle in drugs. They include those wrapped in condoms by new arrivals and hidden internally, those smuggled by visitors and prison officers, and consignments thrown over the perimeter wall by friends on the outside - sometimes in a hollowed-out tennis ball.

The prison population is now at record levels, and has risen over the past 10 years by about 30%. But during the same period, prisoner on prisoner assaults have rocketed from 2,441 in 1997, to 11,520 in 2007 - a rise of nearly 500%.

Tom Robson is an executive with the Prison Officers' Association representing the north west of England, and has been in the service for 31 years. Mr Robson believes drugs are easier to get into prison than ever before, and he says it is drugs that have had the biggest impact on prison violence. He said: "There are the vulnerable and there are those that rise to the top. At the moment we are so overcrowded and prison officers are so thin on the ground, that the policing of the situation becomes very difficult. "The consequences are dire, and that is why we have prison officers assaulted on a daily basis, and prisoner-on-prisoner assaults are going through the roof. "We simply have not got time to talk to prisoners...you see a prisoner sat in his cell in tears and all it takes is five or 10 minutes to sit with the prisoner and see what's wrong, and that five or 10 minutes has been taken away."

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman acknowledged the challenges faced by prison officers, but emphasised that the safety of both staff and inmates was taken very seriously. She said a raft of measures were used to control the supply of drugs in prisons, including searches, drug dogs, phone detectors and CCTV, and that since 1996, drug testing results "indicate that drug use in prisons has fallen by 64%".

But according to Iain Smith, 25, who has been in and out of prisons across the north of the country since he was 18, largely for stealing to fund a heroin addiction, on the inside drugs are never very far away. He said: "It is literally just like going next door to the next cell."Iain has not been in prison since February, and he now advises the crime reduction charity Nacro which helped him kick his habit, but he has vivid memories of what it was like as an addict in prison. He described the routine intimidation meted out to any new inmate thought to be carrying drugs. As the new arrivals come in, the other inmates size them up and pick out someone who looks vulnerable. Iain said: "The new prisoners, as they go to their cells to set up their bed, that's when you see eight or 10 guys go into their cell. "I feel for them. They are scared, and then the next thing you know you've got 10 guys coming into your cell." Then, he said, the other inmates force the new arrival to hand over any drugs they might be carrying.

In 2004 at HMP Nottingham, he said intimidation drove his cell mate to attempt suicide on his first night inside. Iain said the other inmates "were basically telling him that you've got to have drugs, and he got so down, and in the middle of the night he decided to hang himself. "I had to jump up and hold him up...and I grabbed his legs just to hold the weight off his shoelaces, and when they brought him down the shoelaces had cut an inch into his neck."

His cell mate spent the rest of his sentence on suicide watch.

The drug of choice in jail,

Channel 4: 10.12.07

Subutex a heroin substitute - why is the prison service so relaxed about claims that so many prisoners in Britain use it?

Anthony Pratt is 33. A former heroin addict, he's on a drugs treatment programme. He takes a heroin substitute called Subutex, an opiate which like methadone is only available legally under supervision.

He was in prison earlier this year for dealing heroin. Subutex wasn't legally available in his prison. But it was, he says, everywhere - used by at least two thirds of all inmates.

Inside prisons the black market in the Subutex pill or 'subby' as its known is thriving. A market far bigger, perhaps, than anyone has acknowledged publicly to date.

It's extremely difficult to assess the true extent of subutex misuse in prisons. The only official investigation into this was conducted earlier this year by the prison service. Over two months ago we applied for the findings of that study under the Freedom of Information Act.

Twice the ministry of justice has emailed us to say they need more time to work out if releasing such information is in the interests of maintaining security and good order in prisons.

The problem is worrying enough, however, Channel 4 News has learned, for the prison service to ask Lifeline to produce a subutex information leaflet for prisoners.

The charity however is about to publish another - un-sponsored 'cruder version' which likens drug taking to having sex with prostitutes - and which although not advocating smuggling, advises prisoners: 'To avoid injury use strong, smooth packaging and put plenty of lubricant (eg.Vaseline) on your bum and on the object before insertion. '

The prison service have not put their name to this version - but they're aware, say Lifeline, that it will be circulated.

Subutex on the street goes for about £5 a pill. Inside it can sell for £40. Part of its popularity is that it's rarely tested for. Channel 4 News has learned that - despite the prison service being warned about this drug two years ago - 98 out of 140 prisons in England and Wales still do not routinely test prisoners for subutex.

The ministry of justice told Channel 4 News it takes the issue very seriously and will soon be issuing a report on its `growing concern about the potential misuse of subutex in prisons along with any actions to be taken. But this is a prison service - whose best statistics - estimate that the proportion of prisoners misusing drugs is just: 8.9 per cent.

And it's a prison service which - when faced with the need for 'Prison Service Potential Efficiency Savings' - has hardly prioritised drug testing, it seems. An internal memo passed to Channel 4 News is addressed to the governor of a large English prison by a member of staff - dated August this year it recommends cuts in 'half the number of Mandatory Drug Tests' and a 'total removal of voluntary drug test hours'.

Thanks to successful treatment under a programme run by the charity Addaction, Anthony Pratt is aiming to go drug-free soon for the first time in nearly 20 years. A man about to surrender a Subutex habit - the question is how many more will develop one the moment they step inside a prison?

Prison drug barons thrive on illicit phones
Times: 3.12.07

Inmates in the biggest jail in Britain are ordering drugs, continuing to run criminal activities and plotting escapes using mobile phones that are smuggled into the building, according to a watchdog report.

The “apparently limitless” supply of mobile phones in Wandsworth prison is increasing the supply of drugs on the wings as well as “fuelling a whole group of new users”, the report said. Almost 250 mobile phones were found inside Wandsworth, in southwest London, in the first five months of this year, the report from the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board disclosed.

“We still have very serious concerns about the apparently limitless supply of mobile phones in the prison that drive the easy availability of drugs and that are also used in bullying and intimidation,” the report, which covers 2006-07, said. “Mobile phones are used to facilitate the delivery of drugs to prisoners, continue criminal activities from within, pressurise vulnerable prisoners, contact families of prisoners and staff, plan escapes, bullying, intimidation and a host of other unsavoury activities.”

The report said that it was only a matter of time before a “very serious incident” took place because of mobile phone use. It said that more officers should be on duty during religious services to prevent worship being used as a cover for illicit activities, particularly drug dealing. It added that for three years it had warned the Home Office, which until earlier this year had responsibility for prisons, about mobile phone use by prisoners, but no effective action had been taken.

The board called for a jamming system around the prison but it is understood that this cannot be done because it would affect the use of mobile phones on roads outside.

The report said that a schism among Muslim prisoners about the imam at the prison, which developed in 2005-06, remained an issue but was being handled sensitively. It said that there was evidence that some prisoners were forced to adopt “more militant lifestyles”. The imam has been replaced.

The board also criticised the delays in deporting foreign prisoners who have served their sentences but are kept in the jail awaiting deportation. Two immigration officers are dealing with outstanding cases.

“A number of nationalities give us major concerns,” it said. “Somalis, for example, have no active diplomatic representation in this country. We now have a number of Somali prisoners who have been incarcerated well past their release date who want to go home and there seems to be no prospect to facilitate this.”

The board said that conditions at the prison had improved in the past 12 months, with prisoners spending much more time out of their cells, a fall in the use of control and restraint and greater levels of satisfaction with the treatment of prisoners by staff.

Every prison in England and Wales must, by law, have an independent monitoring board made up of local people. The board must satisfy itself of the humane and just treatment of inmates, inform the Secretary of State for Justice of any concerns it has and publish an annual report.

Behind bars

1,485 prisoners are in Wandsworth jail

100 have life or indeterminate sentences

30% are foreign citizens

Source: Independent Monitoring Board

Home Office consultation is 'self-congratulatory and disappointing'

The Observer : 2.12.07

The government was at loggerheads with its own advisers last night over its new drugs policy.
An influential Home Office-backed committee raised serious doubts about the consultation process behind the 10-year strategy which will be unveiled in April. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) described the process as 'self-congratulatory and generally disappointing' and questioned the credibility of much of the evidence presented to government.

A spokesman for the Home Office said last month that the consultation process, which is being conducted by the polling agency Mori, had been 'open' and had included a wide range of views.

But the council said: 'We consider that an opportunity has been missed to address the public health problem relating to drug misuse and the balance with law enforcement and the Criminal Justice System...The consultation would benefit from extending further to the wider social harm of drug misuse.'
It also said: 'It is of concern that the evidence presented, and the interpretation given, are not based on rigorous scrutiny. It is not acknowledged that in many cases the information is uncertain and sometimes of poor quality.'

Last night politicians said the council's response raised questions about whether the government was more interested in spinning its record than tackling the war on drugs.

'The failures of the government's drugs policy are laid bare for all to see when their own advisory committee condemns the Home Office as being misleading and self-congratulatory,' said Liberal Democrat leadership contender Nick Clegg. 'When will the government wake up and acknowledge something many members of the public know: we are losing the war on drugs?' Clegg said

Steve Rolles of think tank Transform, which advises the UN on drugs policy, said: 'The consultation process behind the new strategy has been woeful.' Last month Transform branded the consultation process a 'sham', saying the government had already made up its mind to continue with its current strategy.

Concerns about the direction of the government's next drugs strategy come as senior police officers warn that cannabis now presents a greater 'long-term' threat to Britain than cocaine. The increasing strength of high-grade 'skunk' combined with growing evidence of major criminal involvement in its production was fast becoming an issue of mounting concern. Hospitals recently revealed that the number of mental health admissions as a result of cannabis use had risen by 73 per cent.

Read the ACMD response HERE

Ministers have been accused of "turning a blind eye" to drug smuggling in prisons. The claim came from the Tories as new figures showed a collapse in the arrests of so-called drugs "mules". The number of prison visitors arrested for smuggling narcotics into jail has fallen by 50 per cent over the past seven years.

In 1999-2000, there were 735 arrests for smuggling substances into prison. In the 12 months to April this year, there were only 383.

However, the Prison Service believes the problem is getting worse. There has been a 10 per cent rise in the number of visitors suspected of acting as drug "mules". Last year, governors suspected 3,900 visitors and have imposed bans on 2,700.David Ruffley, the Conservative police reform spokesman, said: "Ministers are turning a blind eye to the criminality that is under their noses."

The government's expert advisers on illicit drugs yesterday warned of the growing use of anabolic steroids by boys as young as 12 as they confirmed they are reviewing the legal status of ecstasy as well as cannabis.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is to write to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, voicing grave concerns about the growing abuse of anabolic steroids which are now being used by "tens of thousands" of bodybuilders and teenagers.

It had been estimated that there were tens of thousands of people using steroids to improve the results of training regimes to make themselves look more muscular, said Professor David Nutt, chairman of the council's technical committee. Steroid users, rather than heroin injectors, were now the main clients of needle exchanges, the committee heard.

Those who used anabolic steroids were often oblivious of the risks, which included acne, breast enlargement, sterility, liver tumours and hepatitis, the council chairman, Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, said. He added: "It can also make the testicles wither - which is probably not what the users want."

The latest figures show that 200,000 people in Britain have tried anabolic steroids, with 42,000 saying they have used them in the last year and 20,000 in the previous month. Home Office controls on anabolic steroids are aimed at suppliers and traffickers and it is not an offence to possess them to enhance performance.

Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive of the drugs charity Turning Point, said elite athletes knew what they were doing using steroids, but their increasing use by boys as young as 12 and 13 was extremely worrying. "They do it because they want to be in boy bands and get girls," he said.

The advisory council, which was meeting in public for the first time in its 36-year history, is also to press the government to ban 26 anabolic steroids currently proscribed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which controls the use of illicit substances in sport. Council members said action was needed in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Some members claimed the council would be better off looking at the anabolic steroid problem than spending two days in February debating whether cannabis should be regraded from class C to class B.

But Rawlins said while some had argued they should refuse the home secretary's request to look at the legal status of cannabis for the third time, he did not think that was right. The first day of the two-day meeting will take evidence in public on whether possession of cannabis should again be dealt with by arrest.

Challenged by Steve Rolles, of the drugs legalisation campaign Transform, to look at the whole system of drug classification, Rawlins remarked that the notes detailing the basis for each classification from A to D dating back to 1973 had been lost. But he confirmed the council is reviewing the legal status of ecstasy as part of a systematic look at the classification of each illicit drug in turn. The ecstasy review began in September and involves the Health Technology Association in Plymouth appraising 750 scientific papers on the harmful effects of the drug in relation to similar illicit substances.

Ecstasy is currently a class A drug, bracketed with heroin, crack cocaine and cocaine. Nutt described the class A status of ecstasy as an anomaly.

Sucked in ...
Guardian: 27.11.07

A new study reveals that teenagers start smoking out of curiosity rather than because they think it's cool. And they are more likely to pick up the habit from their parents than their peers.

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Saturday December 1 2007

In the article below we quoted figures which we said came from "a 2007 survey by the Information Centre (formerly the Office of National Statistics)". The survey was done in 2006 on behalf of the Information Centre for health and social care. The Information Centre was not formerly the Office for National Statistics, although the ONS did carry out earlier surveys on smoking among young people. This has been corrected.

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It was his parents' disappointment that made Ross, 14, stop smoking. That and being grounded four times. He had started to smoke to stop himself from getting into fights. "Smoking was the only way I could stop for a minute and read the situation. It would stop the arguments and I could cool down," he says.

According to a new study by the Roy Castle Foundation, seen exclusively by the Guardian, 82% of smokers start before the age of 18. The Liverpool Longitudinal Smoking Study, due to be published next year, reveals that while some teenagers take up the habit to send a nicotine-stained two-fingered salute to adult authority or in the belief that it will win them friends, others start through boredom or stress.

Dr Susan Woods, one of the report's authors, says that although teenagers tend to think people smoke because it's cool or makes them look tough and mature, teen smokers themselves claim to be influenced by curiosity rather than other people. Primary school children, however, are influenced by parental smoking, which is also the biggest predictor of teen smoking.

"Some of the young people we've spoken to said they started because they were having problems at home; they smoke to relieve stress or they have anger management problems. Primary-school children associate parental smoking as a need to cope with everyday life," she says.

Until now, government resources have focused primarily on prevention, but results have not met expectations. The majority of children are aware of the harmful health effects of smoking, but are still taking it up in large numbers. A 2006 survey done on behalf of the Information Centre for health and social care shows that 9% of 11-15 year olds in England are regular smokers, a figure that has remained stable since 1999, along with 25% of 15-year-old girls smoking regularly, compared to 16% of boys.

Most of the health effects are well documented. Teen smokers are more likely to suffer from coughs and colds in the short term and in the long term, the younger the age someone takes up the habit the greater the risk of cancer and heart disease. There is also mounting evidence to suggest that teenage smokers are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression later in life.

"By the end of primary school, children are fantastically aware of the risks of smoking and what it does to their health. They talk about cancer and heart disease quite confidently. It doesn't stop them starting it, though. So it's possible they see it as classic risk-taking behaviour," says Woods.

Dr Lisa McNally, a health psychologist specialising in teen smoking, says that adults need to face up to the fact that focusing on prevention alone isn't enough. "Kids get addicted to nicotine very quickly. We need to address the addictiveness of cigarettes. As a society we are quite uncomfortable with the idea of children being addicts."

What sparse research there is into the role of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products, such as patches and inhalers, in helping young people to quit is inconclusive - although some experts argue that they may help tackle the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. However, when Iain Miller, former head of tobacco control in Durham, introduced a stop-smoking scheme in schools that provided NRT along with support from school nurses, the success rate was very poor. "Only 24% of young people were successful in stopping smoking four weeks after joining the scheme, compared to the general population rate, which is 50-55%," he says.

Long-term success rates were even poorer, with only 8% managing to give up completely. "NRT can help, but only if someone is determined to give up," says Miller, who believes that children face different pressure to adults, making it difficult to stop smoking. Apart from addiction, peer pressure to continue smoking, stress from education, exams, and relationships, bullying and fear of weight gain all take their toll. But, as with adults, it is alcohol that poses the biggest challenge to staying off cigarettes. "During the week young people might be able to avoid smoking and then on Friday night they hang out with a group of friends and drink. They're then more likely to smoke," Miller says.

Two pieces of smoking legislation came into effect this year - the smoking ban was extended throughout the UK and last month the legal age for buying tobacco products rose to 18. But while adults drink in pubs and bars, young people find other places to drink and smoke. And while a ban may signal that smoking is becoming socially unacceptable, young people still see groups of adults smoking and socialising on the street.

There are also ways round the higher age limit on buying cigarettes. Early consultations by the Roy Castle Foundation suggests that under-16s are still able to buy them - they will ask adults to get cigarettes for them or take them from family members and older friends. Cost is not necessarily prohibitive either: they may buy single cigarettes from friends or buy contraband from street sellers.

Finding one solution to stop all young people smoking seems unlikely. "It's a case of finding the right hooks for the person," says Miller. "If they don't want to stop, they won't."

For image-conscious teens, early development of wrinkles and yellowing teeth could be a deterrent. A game launched in October by the Roy Castle Foundation (tinyurl.com/2kk9b7) enables people to upload a photograph of themselves on to a website and view the ageing effects of smoking on their skin, teeth and eyes.

For others, reduced fitness levels affecting their performance in sport might turn them off the habit. Even the corporate nature of the tobacco industry and knowledge about the redeployment of fertile soil for tobacco production rather than food has made some young people think twice about lighting up.

Another technique is counter-marketing - turning the idea that a smoker is someone who is independent and rebellious into one who is in reality a puppet of big business and the government.

"Smoking for young lads is often a symbol of masculinity and toughness," says McNally, "but you just need to show them the robust evidence linking smoking to impotence. You can literally see their image of smoking change before your very eyes."

Teenage tips: how to help your child give up

· If you find out your child smokes don't shout, nag or be too critical. Ross, 14, a former smoker from Liverpool who has been recruited to help his peers give up says: "If you shout at the kids, they're more likely to rebel. Try to give them a chance - help them give up."

· "Sit down with your child to find out why they are smoking," says Dr Lisa McNally.

"Ask what they are getting out of smoking; why they started and why they like it. If you can find out why they started you're in much more of a position to help them get off it. You don't have to condone smoking, but you should explore it with an open mind."

· If they're reluctant to give up, seek to identify what's important to them. Is it their fitness, their looks, finance or the corporate nature of tobacco companies? McNally says: "One of the worst ways to encourage children to stop smoking is to show them pictures of diseased lungs and hearts. Young people often have a sense of being immortal and not vulnerable to such things. Cancer and heart disease are for old people."

· Help your child to address their smoking behaviour. "Try to help him or her identify when they smoke, the times and the situations. This also helps to pin down why they smoke - what pressures they're under and how they can best avoid them," says tobacco control expert, Iain Miller.

· If you smoke, give up. "If your child is trying to stop smoking and they're coming home to a household full of smoke, it's going to make it really difficult," says Miller. Giving up will also help you to understand how hard it is to quit. "If parents were smokers," he says, "They need to remember how difficult it was for them to kick the habit."

· Contact your local NHS Stop Smoking services for help. These offer non-judgmental support and can offer nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches or inhalers.

Though it may be classed among the most dangerous drugs, cocaine is nonetheless becoming increasingly popular. Everybody knows the scare stories, but perhaps people no longer believe those dire warnings. Paternalistically exaggerating the already dangerous truth for the public good has become an unhelpful lie.

Not only are we warned against cocaine, but also every other drug. One shouldn't smoke tobacco, or drink alcohol excessively (although in reality the average drinker in Europe drinks more than "safe" limits). This morally commendable temperance leaves a credibility gap in policy. If people want to get intoxicated and have a good time, what should they take? Whether or not politicians and healthcare professionals get their kicks entirely from exercise, cold baths and prayer, by disapproving of or criminalising everything, they wash their hands of any responsibility over the forms, patterns and contexts of substance use that we know matter in determining how often people have problems with drugs.

People take cocaine because it is cheaper and more widely available than it used to be, and because it is convenient and rewarding to do so. Users know that, taken not-too often, in not-too large quantities, it is fairly harmless - whatever doctors and governments say. Just as with booze, users fancy that they will not become one of the casualties with heart problems, a criminal record, or a repossessed home as a result of snorting the drug.

Cocaine is convenient because it is easy to hide and quick to take, goes well with heavy drinking, sex and partying, and generally cannot be traced in drug tests for more than a few days. It is rewarding because users feel more confident, up, happy, witty, creative and charming. Sometimes they may be right. At other times they are actually boring the noses off friends and colleagues with their coked-up drivel. There are also the widely desired rewards of easy glamour, risk-taking and simple naughtiness.

Studies repeatedly find that the majority of cocaine users use intermittently and without problems that they cannot handle themselves, just like any other drug, or alcohol. This includes a WHO study in the 1990s that was suppressed by the US government because its findings were unwelcome. Which would seem to indicate that if the evidence contradicts the vote-winning idea that cocaine is overwhelmingly dangerous; then ignore the evidence. So much for "evidence-based practice". Simply banning things that people want to consume doesn't work, however dangerous they are.

There is a need for harm minimisation advice for cocaine, which many users already follow: don't binge for days on end; don't take it every day; get some food and sleep; as Richard Prior said, "cocaine is God's way of telling you that you have too much money", so budget sensibly and don't buy coke on credit; if cocaine starts feeling like a problem, then stop; if your family, friends or servants (well, users do include some of the extremely rich) are concerned, then perhaps you should listen to what they have to say; if your dealer is concerned, then that is a really bad sign. Sadly, harm minimisation also needs to extend further: don't get caught, and if you do, claim it is the first time you have tried it, or it is a mere relapse; and if you can help it don't admit to use in surveys or to concerned professionals. We know a great deal about the possible harm caused by cocaine, and not enough detail about how it is used dangerously, or safely. Increased use needs to be managed, not repressed, and this should include recognising the true nature of the problem.

Tuesday November 27, 2007 6:46 PM

By RAHIM FAIEZ

Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The fields of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan were free of opium poppies this year, a success touted often by Afghan and international officials. But one look at Mohammad Alam's fields uncovers an emerging drug problem. Ten-foot-tall cannabis plants flourish in Alam's fields. The crop - the source of both marijuana and hashish - can be just as profitable as opium but draws none of the scrutiny from Afghan officials bent on eradicating poppies.

Cannabis cultivation rose 40 percent in Afghanistan this year, to 173,000 acres from 123,550 in 2006, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in its 2007 opium survey. The crop is being grown in at least 18 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces, according to the survey released last month. The U.N. report singles out Balkh as a ``leading example'' of an opium-free province, saying other areas should follow ``the model of this northern region where leadership, incentives and security have led farmers to turn their backs on opium.' However, a section of the report says the increase in marijuana cultivation ``gives cause for concern.''

``Cannabis has also spread to the north of Afghanistan and is observed to have increased particularly in Balkh province,'' the survey said.

One of those farmers, Alam, said he knows it's illegal to grow cannabis but he must do so to feed his children. He said the government cannot provide jobs or find markets for legal crops. ``The government cannot provide a good market for other crops like cotton, watermelon and vegetables, so I have to grow marijuana instead of poppy,'' he said. Drug dealers from the southern poppy-growing provinces of Kandahar and Helmand travel north to buy marijuana and take it to Pakistan, Alam said.

Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's acting counter-narcotics minister, said the government doesn't yet have a good handle on marijuana.

``This is also a big problem for Afghanistan,'' said Khodaidad, who like many Afghans uses one name. ``It is very cheap. Hashish is more harmful (than poppies) to the people of Afghanistan.''

The U.N. said cannabis yields around twice the quantity of drug per acre as opium poppies and requires less investment. The U.N. drug report estimated farmers growing cannabis could earn the same amount per acre as opium farmers. ``As a consequence, farmers who do not cultivate opium poppy may turn to cannabis cultivation,'' the report said.

Afghanistan already grows some 93 percent of the world's opium.

Akbar Khan, a 35-year-old farmer from Balkh province, said that if legal crops could command higher prices, farmers would grow those.

``We know marijuana is an illegal crop, but we are very poor and we have to grow it to help our families survive,'' he said. ``I don't like growing poppy or marijuana. I don't want people to become addicted to these things, but I have to feed my children and I have no other way.''

Published: 25 November 2007
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) was a good concept but implementation has been deeply flawed. This is mainly because the Home Office accepted undemanding performance targets. The agency is riven by personnel, pay and budget issues and obsessed with a few, well-known, mainly UK-based, key criminals – regardless of whether they are currently supplying the UK market.

It is also obsessed with "up-stream disruption". That's good, but it has a marginal effect on the UK market. It frequently refuses follow-up operations to catch the organisers behind Customs "cold find" frontier seizures. These often represent the very best current intelligence and offer an opportunity to disrupt the market, make arrests and lead on to targeted operations against organisers.

Customs has consequently struggled to cobble together investigation effort from local police forces – inadequately resourced, inexperienced, unprepared and ill-equipped – to deal with major traffickers.

Customs border staff are frustrated and demoralised by the lack of useful service from Soca. Good agency intelligence for the fleet of purpose-built vessels (the Cutters) is missing. Customs acquired these at a cost of £5m each to meet the challenge from large-scale drugs smuggling by yachts and other vessels. Smuggling drugs into Britain in 2007 is easier than at any time in 30 years. The relevant Home Office junior minister is allegedly asking tricky questions and right to be "concerned".

The whole drugs strategy has been dysfunctional. There's been a failure to appreciate that the most important thing is culture and the way that the view of drugs has changed in recent years. People have been sent mixed messages. The Blunkett downgrading of cannabis had an extraordinary effect and led to even greater confusion.

We have a situation where legal drugs, particularly alcohol, are causing us problems and we also have a problem with illegal drugs that's worse than most countries in Europe. Many illegal drugs, particularly cocaine, have become ubiquitous.

The head of Britain's biggest supermarket chain has called for a change in the law to stop children turning into binge drinkers. Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, effectively called on Gordon Brown to consider raising the legal age at which children can drink at home.

Speaking at a Downing Street seminar convened by the Prime Minister to discuss combating Britain's drink problems, Sir Terry quoted evidence that "most of the alcohol consumed by young people is in their own home".

At present, children can drink in the home from the age of five. But outside, the threshold rises to 18 for people consuming alcohol in licensed premises. However, teenagers having dinner with an adult can drink beer, wine or cider from the age of 16.

Sir Terry said: "It might even help families - because young teenagers can be quite difficult to control - if they [the parents] are backed by a clear message from the law which says this is the age at which you can consume alcohol."A spokesman for Tesco said later that Sir Terry was in effect suggesting a single legal age for drinking which would involve raising the current limit for children to consume alcohol at home. But he insisted that the supermarket boss was not suggesting what that new limit should be.

The Tesco spokesman admitted that some of the lager sold in the company's stores could be cheaper than some mineral water. However, he stressed that Sir Terry was not trying to shift the blame on to parents, saying: "We realise we have got a big part to play." But he pointed out that if cheap alcohol was the issue, drink problems would be worse on the Continent where alcohol could be "far cheaper".

At yesterday's seminar, attended by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, and James Purnell, the Culture Secretary, the Prime Minister called for a "cultural shift" to combat under-age drinking and binge-drinking. He also hinted at tougher enforcement of drink laws.

But two years on from Labour's introduction of 24-hour licensing laws, the Tories claimed that Mr Brown was effectively admitting the reforms had failed.

The Prime Minister has already ordered a Home Office review of the new regime, which is due to report in the New Year. John Wright, of the Federation of Small Businesses, gave warning of the dangers faced by small shopkeepers threatened by young people seeking alcohol.

Jeremy Beadles, the chief executive of the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, said that there was "no magic bullet" to deal with problem drinking.

The comments coincided with the launch of a new Home Office crackdown on retailers selling alcohol to under-age customers and people who were already drunk. The campaign will focus on pubs, clubs and off-licences in areas where there were already high levels of alcohol-related crime and disorder.

The Guardian
23.11.07

Evidence of a growing pre-teen drug problem in Britain emerged yesterday with research showing that one in seven children have tried cannabis before the age of 13.

The study, reported by the EU's drug agency, says there has been an explosion in the number of children under 15 going into drug treatment across Europe.

The annual report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction shows that the UK's drug problem among young teenagers is far worse than in any other EU country. The research shows that 13% of British schoolchildren say they first tried cannabis before they were 13. This is much higher than any other European country - it compares with 8% in the Netherlands and Ireland - and is more than three times the EU average.

Britain also accounts for most of the children under 15 who go into drug treatment each year, with 2,251 out of the 3,237 new patients in Europe, the latest figures show. The number of young British children in treatment, mainly for using cannabis or sniffing inhalants, has grown threefold from 797 in 2000.

The European report says a main factor in the crisis is children growing up in the families of Britain's 330,000 problem drug users: "Research found that at the age of 15, young people whose parents had used drugs during the previous year were more than twice as likely to have used drugs than those whose parents had not used drugs," it reported, adding that drug use by elder brothers and sisters can also be a factor.

The report says that targeting such families, as well as developing treatment programmes for the very young, now needs to be a priority.

The EU drugs agency also said that the growth of cocaine use in Britain and Spain had proved to be a precursor of a new boom in cocaine use across Europe. The market has grown by a million new users in the past year alone, making it the second most popular illegal drug after cannabis.

In Britain, the typical cocaine customer is a weekend user who is socially integrated, in work, and has probably switched from using amphetamines.

The EU agency reports that the European cocaine market grew by 1 million users in the last year, from 3.5 million regular cocaine users to 4.5 million. Spain has the highest level of cocaine abuse out of 29 countries across Europe, with consumption levels similar to the US. In Spain, 5.2% of young adults aged 15-34 say they have used cocaine in the last 12 months, compared with 4.7% in the UK.

The EU drug experts also said that the booming Afghan opium crop had yet to have much impact on the heroin situation in Europe. Drug-related deaths, however, remain at a historic high of between 7,000 and 8,000 each year across Europe.

The report expressed "cautious optimism" about the use of cannabis, saying the European market had stabilised in the past year, with about 3 million using it on a daily basis and signs that its popularity among the young is waning.

The agency reported that in Britain, cannabis use in the past 12 months among 16- to 24-year-olds has fallen sharply from 28.2% in 1998 to 21.4% in 2006.

Britain is no longer at the top of the European cannabis league among people aged 15-34, with 16.3% using it in the last year compared with 20% for Spain, 19% for the Czech Republic and 16.5% for Italy.

BBC 20.11.07

Senior police officers are calling for cannabis to be reclassified from a class C to a class B drug.
Three years ago the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) supported the drug's downgrading, but now wants a return to the previous position.

Tim Hollis, chairman of Acpo's drugs committee, said downgrading cannabis had sent out the wrong signals.Acpo is also concerned about the number of cannabis "factories" that have sprung up across the country.

Mr Hollis said organised criminals now viewed the UK as a potential place to produce cannabis. He said: "Some people are targeting the UK because they see it's financially worthwhile. "We've got to increase the risk of being raided by the police and send a clear message out that cannabis is a drug, we do take it seriously, and we will tackle those people who try to trade in drugs."

Police say any reclassification would not necessarily change the way that they currently police possession of cannabis, although that may be reviewed in the light of any reclassification.

Mr Hollis said the emphasis should be on targeting dealers, rather than criminalising people who use cannabis recreationally.

Acpo will give its evidence relating to its new position to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is due to report to the Home Office next Spring.

A Home Office spokesperson said the government would decide, probably next summer, whether or not to reclassify cannabis following consultations with both the advisory council and the public.

But the Home Office is stressing that since cannabis was downgraded in 2004, there has been a "steady fall" in the use of the drug. It quotes research from the government-funded Information Centre that says cannabis use among children aged between 11 and 15 has fallen since 2004.

The drugs charity Release criticised Acpo's new stance, saying reclassification "would make no difference" to people's decision whether they smoked cannabis or not. Niamh Eastwood, Release's head of legal services, said: "The latest figures show that young people are smoking less cannabis. On the other hand, the consumption of alcohol and cocaine is rising."

One factor which is thought to have influenced Acpo's new stance is new supposed evidence of a link between heavy cannabis use and mental illness.

On Tuesday police chiefs at an Acpo drugs conference heard that "super-strength" cannabis helps cause memory deficits and psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia.

Younger people, whose brains are still developing, are thought to be especially vulnerable to the drug's effects.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: "Any decision regarding the drug's classification needs to take account of the potential damage to the estimated 800 people each year who, without cannabis, would not have developed psychotic illness."

But Ms Eastwood from Release said the links between cannabis and mental illness were not proven.

"There has been no dramatic increase in the incidence of schizophrenia over the past 40 years, despite the fact that cannabis use has risen," she said.

The Guardian
21.11.07
The number of "problem drug users" - those using opiates and/or crack cocaine - remains stable at around 332,000, according to the latest official estimate published yesterday.

But there is some evidence among a series of eight Home Office research studies published yesterday that treatment programmes and law enforcement measures are having some impact in reducing drug-related crime in England and Wales. The government's annual "drug harm index", which was developed to measure the overall impact of its drugs strategy, showed a continuing fall from 89.1 to 83.8 from 2004 to 2005.

This decline was largely due to falls in drug use and further reductions in drug-related crime, particularly burglaries and shoplifting, although this fall was overshadowed by a rise in drug-related robbery. Similarly a decline in drug-related hepatitis C cases was more than offset by a rise in drug-related deaths from 1,495 in 2004 to 1,608 in 2005.

The official estimate of 332,000 problem drug users in England for 2005/06 compares with 327,000 for the previous year. The Home Office said the increase was not statistically significant, leading it to describe the figures as stable. The estimate includes 286,000 opiate users, 197,000 using crack and 129,000 injecting class A drugs.

A separate study based on drug testing of those arrested by the police between 2003 and 2006 shows a consistent fall in the use of crack cocaine and heroin and a fall in those injecting drugs.

More positive results also came from the study of the effectiveness of the drugs intervention programme launched in 2003, which refers drug-using offenders into treatment. Overall offending rates fell by 26% among a group of 7,727 offenders in the programme. Half the sample showed a 79% decline in their criminal behaviour after the programme. About 3,500 offenders enter treatment as a result of the scheme every month.

Martin Barnes, the chief executive of DrugScope, the drugs information charity, said that the reports overall did suggest welcome progress but noted that the picture was not universally positive.

"The clear message from these reports is that there can be no complacency. For many drug users their problems are compounded by unemployment, poor housing and lack of access to many key services."

The Guardian
21.11.07

The true scale of Britain's illicit drug economy was revealed yesterday with the disclosure of an internal Home Office estimate that there are 300 major importers, 3,000 wholesalers and 70,000 street dealers involved in a trade with a turnover of between £7bn and £8bn a year.

The Home Office research says the average dealer has an annual turnover of £100,000 a year, many drug operations employ salaried staff as "runners and storers" and raise their heroin prices by as much as £1,000 a kilo as demand peaks at Christmas.

The research, based on prison interviews with 222 convicted drug dealers, also shows that a prison sentence is not seen as a significant deterrent, with their drug businesses handed over to employees or colleagues while they were inside. Most saw prison as an occupational hazard or "unlikely risk" and it is rare for operations to totally cease following an arrest.

Instead, asset recovery operations including confiscation orders were seen as a much bigger threat, with some dealers complaining to researchers that those arrested were "losing everything that they have - even the things they acquired through honest means".

The study, the Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom, undertaken by the Matrix Knowledge Group and London School of Economics, is the first large-scale interview programme with drug traffickers and dealers inside prison.

The estimate that 70,000 street dealers are active in the British drug economy is based on previously unpublished Home Office calculations. The report says the £7bn-£8bn estimate of annual turnover implies that the average street dealer does £100,000 worth of business each year.

Earlier Home Office estimates of the scale of the drug trade, between £4bn and £6.6bn in 2003-04, suggested the amount spent on drugs each year was equal to 33% of the tobacco market and 41% of that for alcohol.

The study published yesterday says demand for illegal drugs remains high and stable, with a tendency for dealers of heroin and cocaine to specialise.

It finds there are very high mark-ups along the supply chain from production to street level, about 15,800% in the case of cocaine and 16,800% for heroin. Even with those profit margins, dealers said their main challenge was cash flow.

The study says more than three-quarters of dealers began their activities through contact with friends and family, the only special skill needed being a "willingness to break the law".

Trust is of crucial importance in dealers' choice of who to work with. They often choose only those they have grown up with or spent time in prison with.

The researchers found that only a fifth of dealers could be described as sole traders, with most operating in small- or medium-size enterprises and the overwhelming majority trying to "grow their operations".

There is some use of salaried staff, typically in unskilled roles as runners and storers who are paid very small proportions of the cost of the transaction or the profit involved.

Only a small number of dealers suggested that the risk of arrest was increasing, with one cocaine dealer reporting that 20 of his original 50 contacts in the trade in 2003 are still operating.

One dealer believed he had married a woman who was a police informant: she had him arrested with 100,000 ecstasy tablets and several hundred kilograms of cannabis.

He said he had found out that his wife had previously been married to two other drug dealers who were also caught.

The researchers also report the case of a cannabis and cocaine importer who gave his driver £300,000 on a Friday night to take abroad: "But the divvy decides it would be nice to lay the money on his bed, make mad passionate love to his 17-year-old girlfriend and photograph it."

When the driver took his wife out on the Saturday night, his "girlfriend turned up pissed and showed the photos to his wife". She in turn told Customs who arrested the driver at Dover, curtailing his business trip.

While most of those interviewed saw prison as an "occupational hazard", only a third correctly estimated what sentence they would get.

Of confiscation orders, one national level heroin distributor said: "If you buy a home or a car or any possessions you will lose it when you get caught - and nearly everyone gets caught."

Dealers' tales

Two kilos of cocaine from the West Indies

In these circumstances, a husband and wife falling behind with their mortgage would be used. The dealer said that "they would always be British to have a higher chance of getting through. They would bodypack two kilos and would be given £5,000-£10,000 between them, plus the cost of a holiday. The chance of getting caught in this scenario is higher. You need to know somebody in the West Indies but this is not difficult to do. London is multicultural, you can meet a contact"

Cocaine importer from Spain, 2000-01

The key person in this deal was described as "the guy with the transport, be it a car, van, boat or large lorry. He charged £1,500 to £2,000 per kilo. Sometimes an agreement has been made prior that he will sell to you and you deliver the money. Depending on the supply in Spain you would pay £20,000 a kg but it could be £15,000." The dealer reported that he had tried to sell he cocaine for £22,000 a kg to make his cheaper than his competitors, but there were times he sold it for £26,000-£29,000

Lone trader in ecstasy and heroin

Sol was on a fishing holiday in the Netherlands and met a man there who was involved in drugs and gave him his first ecstasy tablet. He liked it and they offered him 2,000 pills so he took them back to England in his fishing bag on the ferry. When he got back he found someone to buy them, through a friend of a friend who was a dealer. He started doing the trip like this every two to three months. Eighteen months later he started buying cocaine in the Netherlands too. He would bring the cocaine back on the ferry in the same way as he dealt with ecstasy

A trial scheme which set up "shooting galleries" in three cities, enabling heroin users to obtain drugs and inject them under supervision, has dramatically cut crime rates and stopped addicts buying their supplies on the streets.

Yesterday's preliminary results from the £2.5m pilot project sent a ripple of excitement through the treatment community, because long-term heroin users are among the hardest addicts to treat. They lead chaotic lives, often robbing and stealing to fund their habits. According to official figures, 10 per cent of drug addicts commit 75 per cent of the acquisitive crimes in the Britain. But the number of offences committed by the heroin addicts taking part in the shooting gallery scheme fell from an average of 40 each per month before they were admitted to "about half a dozen a month" after six months of intensive therapy, according to Professor John Strang, the head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley Hospital, who is leading the study.

Instead of buying street heroin every day, the 150 volunteers are now buying it only four or five times a month on average – while a third of them have completely stopped "scoring" the drug on the streets.

Professor Strang said: "This is genuinely exciting news. These are people with a juggernaut-sized heroin problem and I really didn't know whether we could turn it around. We have succeeded with people who looked as if their problem was unturnable, and we have done it in six months."

The scheme is modelled on one in Switzerland, where the introduction of injecting clinics "medicalised" heroin use and transformed it from an act of rebellion to a treatable illness. Similar clinics operate in France, Germany and Canada.

The first British injecting clinic opened in south London two years ago, funded by the Home Office and the Department of Health. Two more were opened, in Darlington last year and in Brighton two months ago. During the trial, a third of the volunteer addicts take the heroin substitute methadone orally, while a third inject it under supervision. The remaining third, observed by nurses, attend twice a day to inject themselves with diamorphine – or pure heroin – which is imported from Switzerland and provided by the clinic. Professor Strang said: "The rules are incredibly strict. There is no 'take-away' at all [to avoid the users selling their drugs on the streets]. All injections are witnessed at the clinic.

"The approach introduces routine and drudgery by forcing the users to attend for their fix twice a day. The nurses have become quite involved, telling users off about their bad practice or lack of hygiene. I was quite surprised how, after decades of injecting, some users were still so bad at it."

There are an estimated 280,000 users of hard drugs in Britain, most taking heroin and crack cocaine, and about 2,500 deaths a year. The shooting gallery scheme, targeted at long-term heroin users, operates seven days a week, 365 days a year and costs £15,000 per year for each addict – three times the cost of providing oral methadone treatment.

Jamie, 39, heroin addict: 'I have got no warrants hanging over my head'

Since the age of 16, Jamie has been to jail 28 times. She has lost her children, her possessions and very nearly her life when she was hospitalised for six weeks in 2004. All because of heroin.

"It started when I was 14. I kept running away from home and got involved with some older kids who were using 'skag'. I wanted to know what it was like. By 16 I was addicted."

Much of her life since then has been spent on the run from police and in treatment programmes, none of which succeeded in weaning her off the drugs.

In 2005 she was one of the first addicts to be taken on by the injecting clinic in south London. It has transformed her life. "I am no longer out shoplifting. I have got no fines or arrest warrants hanging over my head and I am not in prison. I have a better relationship with my family and I feel great."

Now 39, she injects diamorphine every morning and afternoon and wants to start reducing her dose soon. "My plan is to go to college and get a job. Heroin addiction is an illness – it has been my illness since I was a teenager."

Heroin clinic 'reduces drug use'
BBC 19.11.07

Initial results from a London pilot scheme where addicts inject themselves with heroin in a clinic suggest it has reduced drug use and crime. Clinics in Brighton and Darlington also form part of the trial.

The injecting clinics, intended for hardened heroin addicts for whom conventional treatment has failed, have operated for about two years. The scheme, which has so far cost £2.5m, is funded by both the Home Office and the Department of Health.

During the trial, a third of addicts are using heroin substitute methadone orally and a third will inject methadone under supervision.

The remaining third, observed by nurses, are injecting themselves with diamorphine - unadulterated heroin - imported from Switzerland and provided by the clinic.

Some 150 users will take part in the trial overall. Final results will not be known for another year but, in London, doctors and nursing staff say drug use has fallen significantly.

They also say the lives of those on the scheme have stabilised because they are not buying from street dealers and getting involved in crime.

Trial leader Professor John Strang, of the National Addiction Centre, based at London's Institute of Psychiatry, told BBC News that about 40% of users had "quit their involvement with the street scene completely". "Of those who have continued, which obviously is a disappointment, it goes down from every day to about four days per month," he added. "Their crimes, for example, have gone from 40 a month to perhaps four crimes per month. "The reduction in crime is not perfect but is a great deal better for them and crucially a great deal better for society."

People on the trial also attend regular counselling sessions and regular appointments with their GP.

BBC correspondent Danny Shaw said initial results suggested the experiment was having a profound effect on hardened heroin addicts.

Many were leading much more stable lives and were enjoying better family relationships because they were no longer in and out of prison, our correspondent added.

He said that, although these were very early days, there had been a dramatic effect on the lives of people for whom heroin had been a daily part of their lives for 20 or 30 years.

The cost of the treatment, including providing heroin, is between £9,000 and £15,000 per patient - about three times as much as a year's course of methadone.

Last year, Howard Roberts, the deputy chief constable of Nottinghamshire, said heroin should be prescribed to drug addicts to curb crime.

And earlier this year the number of people treated for heroin addiction in Scotland reached record levels, with about 21,000 people said to be using heroin substitute methadone - 10% more than previously thought.

Similar heroin injection schemes in Holland and Switzerland have reported some users turning away from crime.

Guardian 20.11.07

Report reveals that dealers enjoy mark-ups of 15,800% on cocaine.

There are about 300 major drug importers into Britain, 3,000 wholesalers and 70,000 street dealers producing a turnover of £7-8bn a year, according to an internal Home Office estimate revealed today.
This official indication of the astonishing scale of the drugs trade in Britain, although very rough, has led Home Office researchers to calculate that by value it represents about a third of the size of the tobacco market in Britain and two-fifths of the trade in alcohol.

The estimates are contained in a Home Office research study published today based on prison interviews with 222 convicted high-level drug dealers. This reveals that about three-quarters of drug dealers attempt to grow their operations, enjoy mark-ups of 16,800% on heroin and 15,800% on cocaine, and now employ salaried staff as runners and storers.
The research also shows that prison is not seen as a serious deterrent and is only regarded as an "occupational hazard or an unlikely risk". A prison sentence meant handing an established enterprise onto an employee or colleague.

By contrast, recent asset recovery action under which drug trade proceeds are seized is regarded as a much bigger threat.

"People who are arrested are losing everything that they have - even the things they acquired through honest means," one convicted dealer told the researchers.

"If you buy a home or a car or any possessions you will lose it when you get caught, and nearly everyone gets caught," said another.

The study is published alongside a clutch of other Home Office research reports on the drugs situation in Britain.

They show that the number of problem drug users - those dependent on opiates such as heroin or cocaine or a number of drugs - has remained stable at around 332,000 in England and Wales in the past year. Drug prices have also continued to decline over time.

The government's drug harm index, which is its principal way of measuring the success of its strategy, was also published today and shows a further fall from 89.1 in 2004 to 83.4 in 2005.

The Home Office said this was largely due to further reductions in drug-related crime, most notably domestic and commercial burglaries, theft from cars, and shoplifting. A fall in drug-related hepatitis C cases however was more than offset by a rise in drug-related deaths from 1,495 in 2004 to 1,608 in 2005.

· Writer's daughter jailed for manslaughter
· Drug abuse of boy aged 2 became routine in hostel

The Guardian: 24.11.07

The bleak world of a council estate playwright who took London's theatre world by storm has returned to haunt her family with the death of her toddler grandson from a teaspoon of heroin substitute.
The darkest visions of Andrea Dunbar, a single mother whose play Rita, Sue and Bob Too was made famous by the Royal Court theatre in 1982, engulfed her family and ended in the death of two-year-old Harris Dunbar last July.

The child's mother, Samaya Rafiq, daughter of Dunbar, who died in 1990 after collapsing in a Bradford pub aged 29, was jailed for three years yesterday after admitting manslaughter.
Bradford crown court heard she had allowed the boy to play with bottles of methadone until he developed a craving for the drug, and the heroin and crack cocaine which she took in front of him.

The court heard that the relentlessly pessimistic vision of Samaya's mother, who recorded drug-taking, crime and casual sex on the Buttershaw estate, became reality for her daughter.

Known as Lorraine Dunbar until she converted to Islam, Rafiq turned to drugs and prostitution after her mother's death led to her being taken into care.

Her barrister, Mukhtar Hussain QC, said in mitigation before sentencing: "She began taking drugs when she herself was a child. Her mother had left her money but when that ran out she turned to prostitution and crime to fund her habit." Like Andrea Dunbar, who spent 18 months in a refuge for battered women and had her three children by different fathers, Rafiq ended up in a hostel, where the drug abuse of her son became routine.

Andrew Robertson QC, prosecuting, said: "When a friend challenged her about letting Harris play with the bottles, she responded with words to the effect that there was no harm in it. Hair tests confirmed that in the last four months of his life, Harris had actually ingested methadone in not insignificant amounts.

"One witness described him screaming and holding his arms out as his mother took her dose as if he wanted some."

The toddler was found apparently lifeless on a bed at the hostel and was pronounced dead at Bradford royal infirmary. A postmortem found the equivalent of 358mg of methadone a litre in the boy's tissues, with additional traces of heroin and crack cocaine in his hair.

His DNA was found on three of Samaya's six methadone bottles and he had also drunk from a bottle of anti-depressant.

The pathetic circumstances had many echoes of Andrea Dunbar's work, which was catapulted to fame after she met the Royal Court's director, Max Stafford-Clark, at the home of her social worker in the Brontë tourist village of Haworth, near Bradford. Her graphic portrayal of what was newly known at the time as the "underclass", a short play called The Arbour, was a cause celebre at the Court.

Even greater success came with Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which became a successful film. As well as giving a clear-eyed vision of the dismal life of many people on Buttershaw, she caught a mood by consigning the cheery, pipe-sucking world of flat-capped northerners to the dustbin.

Dunbar was equally celebrated for not having her head turned and refusing to leave Buttershaw, but her lifestyle led to serious ill-health and eventually a fatal brain haemorrhage. She made no bones about believing that most of her neighbours were forced to put their own interests first in the struggle to get by.

Passing sentence, the recorder, Judge Stephen Gullick, told Rafiq: "Your doubtless overwhelming desire to satisfy your own needs meant you totally failed to carry out your duty as a parent to protect your son from harm."

Richard Bates, head of children's services for Bradford council, said: "An independent review undertaken by the local safeguarding children board will be identifying any lessons that can be learned from this tragic case."

Druggie's Son, 2, Is Killed By Methadone
Nov 24 2007 Dailu Record

Rita, Sue And Bob Too Girl Jailed For Overdose Death

AN ADDICT mum has been jailed after her two-year-old son developed a craving for drugs and died because he swallowed her methadone. Samaya Rafiq - whose late mother wrote the hit comedy Rita, Sue And Bob Too - smoked crack cocaine and heroin around little Harris Dunbar. And witnesses told how the infant stretched out his arms when she took drugs, as if looking for a fix. She even allowed him to play with her bottles of methadone. The tot died after taking a spoonful of the drug in a women's hostel.

Yesterday, 28-year-old Rafiq - known as Lorraine Dunbar until she converted to Islam - was jailed for three years and nine months at Bradford Crown Court. A judge was told Rafiq's life unravelled after her playwright mum Andrea died from a brain haemorrhage in 1990 aged just 29. Rafiq, who was 11, was taken into care but turned to drugs and prostitution to fund her habit. Even the arrival of her son could not halt her cravings.

Andrew Robertson QC, prosecuting, said: "An eyewitness confirmed that the defendant allowed the child to play with her methadone bottles."When a friend challenged her, she responded with words to the effect that there was no harm in it."

Tests confirmed that in the last four months of his life, little Harris had ingested "not insignificant amounts" of methadone at the hostel in Bradford.

One witness described him screaming and holding his arms out as his mother took her dose, as if he wanted some. He was found lying still in the hostel on July 16 last year and pronounced dead an hour later in hospital. Mr Robertson said the equivalent of a 5ml teaspoon of methadone had been found in his blood. He had also been exposed to passive smoking of heroin and crack cocaine.

The prosecutor added: "The amount of drugs detected from his hair samples would have been sufficiently high to have had an effect on him."

Rafiq pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence and four counts of cruelty. Sentencing her, judge Stephen Gullick said: "Your doubtless overwhelming desire to satisfy your own needs meant you totally failed to carry out your duty as a parent to protect your son from harm."

A former friend of Rafiq, who did not wish to be named, said: "She should have got life for what she allowed to happen to that poor baby. Addiction is not an excuse."

Rafiq's mum Andrea wrote Rita, Sue And Bob Too when she was just 21.The play - later turned into a film - was a bawdy comedy about teenage promiscuity.

AMSTERDAM - Cannabis connoisseurs in their thousands have descended on the Dutch capital of Amsterdam this week to sample and select the winners of the 20th annual Cannabis Cup competition.

"There's a lot of good competition this year," said 'Herbal Santa' a longtime marijuana smoker from Orange County, California, who, when asked for his name only offered 'Jim'.

Organisers said they expected about 3,500 participants.

The week-long Cannabis Cup is spread out at various coffee shops throughout Amsterdam, although the main events are held in a club on the outskirts of the city, tucked behind a McDonald's fast-food restaurant and a do-it-yourself store.

The event coincides with the annual U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, allowing participants from across the Atlantic to spend a week's holiday in Amsterdam.

The event was started in 1987 by Steven Hager, the editor of New York-based magazine High Times that advocates the legalisation of cannabis, and has become a key annual event among cannabis-orientated business and for many pot smokers.

Judges pay a fee of up to $200 to participate in selecting the winners with their task to examine the potency, taste, smell, curing and overall experience of various herbs.

Marijuana is technically illegal but has been decriminalised and is tolerated in the Netherlands, where it is sold in small quantities in "coffee shops."

"People should come to peace together and smoke," said Arjan Roskam, owner of the Green House Seed Co., whose marijuana strains have won 31 Cannabis Cup prizes over the years. His coffee house is a frequent destination for visiting celebrities.

"You see people from 18 to 80 having a good time," said Roskam. "It's a very friendly gathering." (Reporting by Reed Stevenson, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Theiss was arrested by police in Kansas City for possessing the toad “with the intention of using it as a hallucinogen”. He was granted bail and it remains to be seen whether he will be given a custodial sentence. The toad was kept in custody.

What if the same thing happened here? English law on prohibited drugs and substances is complicated. There are over 250 substances covered in the Schedules to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Most are synthetic but some are found naturally. Opium, for example, is the coagulated juice of the opium poppy. Bufotenine, a Class A drug, occurs as a secretion of the common toad and the natterjack toad. The secretion can make people ill and kill some animals.

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it is an offence to intentionally kill, injure, take or possess a toad, as it is a protected animal. But the House of Lords has ruled that the offence of unlawful possession of a drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 isn’t established just by proof of the possession of a natural material (which, yes, would include a toad) of which the drug is one of the unseparated ingredients.

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So, under English law, no-one has ever been arrested for possession of a toad with intent to slurp it.

Professor Gary Slapper is Director of the Centre for Law at The Open University

Enforcing the law on Class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine has become a low priority for police as they concentrate on trying to achieve government targets.

Known addicts are seldom searched when officers spot them in the street, even though it is a serious offence and many addicts are involved in petty crime to fund their habits, according to a study funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

It found target-setting and a move towards visible street patrols had lessened the focus on problem drug use.

Stewart Lister, of the University of Leeds, led the study, which will be unveiled this week at a conference of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

England has an estimated 330,000 heroin and crack addicts who are responsible for a large proportion of offences such as shoplifting, prostitution and begging.

Children & drug rehab: Nine-year-olds among thousands seeking help with their addiction problems

Family breakdown and school exclusion are just two factors that are turning Britain's youngsters into drug abusers, especially of cannabis. Last year, more than 9,000 went into treatment – an increase of 20 per cent.

Independent
18.11.07

Thousands of British children are receiving treatment for drug abuse as stresses including family breakdown and expulsion from school fuel a rise in young people appealing for help with their addictions.

Official figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday have revealed that more than 9,000 children aged as young as nine entered treatment for drug problems in England last year. The total, revealed by health ministers, was up a fifth on the figure for 2005-06.

More than half the young people in residential treatment units or reporting to GPs and community action teams list cannabis as the main drug they are abusing. But, in a disturbing signal that abuse of class A drugs is creeping into Britain's playgrounds, the proportion of young people in treatment listing cannabis as their principal drug is falling.

The latest Department of Health figures come only days after the school inspection organisation, Ofsted, warned that one in seven 12- to 15-year-olds had tried illegal drugs.

Experts warned that the rising toll of disclosed drug problems did not tell the full story, as many youngsters were suffering in silence – or refusing to accept that their drug use had become a problem. But they insisted that the most of the youngsters involved were turning to drugs in a desperate attempt to deal with a mountain of problems.

"We are working with about 3,000 young people across the country, and the age they start coming to us is getting lower," said Clare McNeil, a policy officer for the drug treatment charity Addaction. "We know that so many of the young people who have problems in this area just are not getting treatment anywhere. These figures are the tip of the iceberg." Ms McNeil said problems at school were emerging as a central factor. She added: "One of the main indicators for young people beginning to use drugs dramatically enough to warrant treatment is exclusion from school."

The argument is backed up by east London teenager Scott Jacobs' experiences. He turned to cannabis to help him through the trauma of troubles at home – and he found an instant escape.

"My mum and her boyfriend were arguing in the house all the time and smoking helped me to sleep through the rows and just feel a bit happier," he said. "I started smoking with my mates at weekends and liked the buzz straight away.

"I started having trouble getting up for school and ended up bunking off and smoking more, about £10 worth everyday back then. The teachers wouldn't let me take my GCSEs as I had missed too many classes, and by then I was only hanging out with my mates who smoked."

Earlier this year, the Government responded to mounting concerns over the "patchy" coverage of young people's drug treatment services across the country – and fears that thousands like Scott were being overlooked – with a declaration that every young person should be guaranteed "access to high-quality specialist substance misuse treatment provision when they need it".

The latest government figures demonstrate the size of the task ahead of them. Almost 7,500 nine- to-15-year-olds entered drug treatment programmes in 2005-06, but the total rose to 9,031 last year. Although the number reporting cannabis as their main drug rose from 4,567 to 5,037, the proportion fell from 61 per cent to 56 per cent over the period. The steep rise in the rate of users of other drugs entering treatment backed up the findings of a poll of drug workers earlier this year, which revealed an increase in younger people appealing for help with a cocaine problem.

The survey of staff at 80 drug services in 20 towns and cities, carried out by the charity Drugscope, established that a "two-tier" pricing structure had opened the cocaine market to younger and younger people.

Figures from the National Treatment Agency (NTA) showed a rise in the number of children entering drug treatment with cocaine as their main problem drug in 2005-06. In 2004-05 there were 231 cases involving under 18s, but the figure rose to 471 the following year.

Drugscope spokesman Harry Shapiro said the rise was closely linked to an increase in the stresses facing Britain's youth, documented in a shocking United Nations survey that put the UK bottom of an international table of child well-being.

He said: "Our teams have been expressing concerns about young people and their use of class A drugs, as well as cannabis, for some while. Young people who have the most problems in their lives are those who are the heaviest users of drugs such as cannabis. Clearly, if children have a difficult background, with poverty, unemployment and dysfunctional families, the chances that they are going to self-medicate with drugs are that much higher."

An internal Addaction survey this year found the range of problems facing modern children had taken a terrible toll on their lives – and the stability of their families. "We found that over half the families we help had broken down," Clare McNeil said. "In a third of those families, the main reason for the breakdown was the young person's abuse of drugs or alcohol."

The NTA, however, maintains that the steep rise in the numbers of young people in treatment was proof that the Government's strategy was working – not that the problem was getting out of control. The new figures on young people in treatment reflected "the massive improvements that have been made over the past few years in engaging more people in effective drug treatment".

An NTA spokeswoman said teams were now working with a range of young people experiencing problems with family relationships, school attendance or offending. The spokeswoman added: "The increasing numbers accessing treatment as a result of cannabis use demonstrates that treatment services are getting better at engaging those in need of treatment, despite an overall reduction in the prevalence of cannabis use."

The system has, so far, failed to reach people like Danny Fitz, an 18-year-old from east London, who claims he has been "pretty much stoned 24/7" since starting smoking skunk three years ago after leaving school with no qualifications.

"I know I smoke too much but I'm addicted now," Danny explained. "If I don't have weed I can't sleep. I'm moody and irritable with my family so I just smoke as much as I can afford.

"If I haven't had enough before I go to sleep I wake up in the middle of the night and have to roll a spliff, and I always start my day with one."

It is a story Suzy Stride has heard many times before. Ms Stride, senior manager of City Gateway, a popular east London youth project working with "at risk" young people who are not in education or training, said her clients often come from difficult family backgrounds and have friends who want to be drug dealers. The schooling system has nearly always failed them.

But, while government experts maintain that the rise in treatment numbers reflected an improvement in services for young drug users, grass-roots workers such as Ms Stride warn that even these figures masked a more worrying trend among young people who saw no problems with their cannabis use.

She said: "Cannabis is the biggest curse on the youth generation because they don't see it as a problem. It is seen as completely normal because everyone is doing it.

"I grew up here and there is much more weed around than ever before. I can see what it is doing to them on the streets. Lots of young people can't do anything without a spliff. They need cannabis to sleep, to feel confident. They totally depend on it."

The point is underlined by Imran, 18, who started smoking his older brother's cannabis when he was 11 years old and had dropped out of school by the time he was 14. He does not see his habit as a problem.

"I do smoke too much because I spend most of my money on it," said Imran. "I do feel a bit paranoid after smoking sometimes, I think people in the street are looking at me, but it doesn't bother me; it's just my mind playing tricks. I don't think smoking is doing me any harm. In fact, it makes me feel calmer – it feels like meditating."

Ms Stride said cannabis abuse limited young users' ability to have fun, as well as "learning and getting skilled up and ready for jobs". Results of Ofsted's TellUs2 online survey last week revealed that 15 per cent of children aged between 12 and 15 said they had experimented with illegal drugs, most often cannabis, but also heroin, cocaine and ecstasy.

Ofsted's chief inspector of education, Christine Gilbert, urged ministers to take the findings seriously. She said: "The survey presents much that is positive about life for children... However, it is also clear that more needs to be done to address children and young people's worries and concerns about how safe they feel, about exams and tests, and about what would help them learn better and where they need to go for help when they have a problem."

But the shadow children's minister, Tim Loughton, claimed the findings offered more evidence of Britain's "broken society". He added: "Gordon Brown is in denial about this problem, which is why his Government is unable to offer any solutions to it."

A Department of Health spokesman yesterday insisted that the treatment figures prove that the Government's war on drugs among children and young people is working.

He said: "These figures reflect the massive improvements that have been made over the past few years in engaging more people in effective drug treatment. In terms of cannabis, we have seen, both through the Department of Health's school survey and the British crime survey, a reduction in cannabis use across all age groups."

This positive view of how young people are coping with life in Britain is not borne out by Danny Fitz, who does not expect to kick his addiction any time soon. "I did try to get help from my GP once but I never went back to see her," he said. "Maybe I should have, but I think I'm too young to get help. I just need a job. I would definitely smoke less if I was working.

"I have been caught twice but only got a caution, so I'm not worried about the police. I would love to be a social smoker, just one before work, one at lunchtime and then in the evening. Once I've got a job that's what

17.11.07
The head of the UN's anti-narcotics unit has called on Nato forces to crack down on heroin production in Afghanistan – a policy which contradicts proposals by the Brown government.

Gordon Brown will propose paying farmers more than they earn from their poppy harvests in return for ceasing to grow the crop when he makes a statement to the Commons in the next few weeks on his strategy for winning over Afghans and curbing the influence of the Taliban.

Thus far the British campaign to destroy poppy production has been an abject failure, according to the annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The biggest growth area is in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, where British forces are fighting daily battles.

British and allied forces are looking at ways of targeting the heroin dealers by destroying drug factories inside Afghanistan. However, British ministers are keen to avoid alienating the farmers who are making a living out of the poppy crop.

That has caused tensions with the US administration, which has been pressing Britain to support aerial spraying to destroy the crop. But aerial spraying is opposed by Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and a senior Downing Street official made it clear yesterday that Mr Brown will call for a more sympathetic approach to the farmers. "We have to work closely with the communities involved," he said.

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UNODC, gave new figures showing Afghanistan's export of drugs to the West was fuelling the insurgency in Afghanistan. Releasing the final draft of its 2007 Afghan opium survey, the UNODC chief said poppy growth increased 17 per cent to 193,000 hectares and the growth in heroin production leapt a third to 8,200 tonnes.

The report shows that Afghanistan now accounts for 93 per cent of world opium production and is the biggest narcotics producer since 19th-century China. Helmand produces about half of the national output of heroin. Farmers gained around $1bn (£500m) from the total income from the heroin trade, estimated at $4bn, while district officials took a percentage through a levy on the crops. The rest was shared among insurgents, warlords and drugs traffickers, it said.

The wholesale price of a gram of heroin grew with every border crossed, it noted, rising from $2.50 in Afghanistan itself to $3.50 in Pakistan and Iran, $8 in Turkey, $22 in Germany, $30 in Britain and $33 in Russia.

"The potential windfall for criminals, insurgents and terrorists is staggering and runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars," Mr Costa said.

"Since drugs are funding the insurgency, Nato has a self-interest in supporting Afghan forces in destroying drugs labs, markets and convoys. Destroy the drug trade and you cut off the Taliban's main funding source."

Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office minister, told peers recently that the Department for International Development was preparing plans to provide long-term payments to farmers for stopping poppy production and growing alternative crops.

However, a British charity, the Senlis Council, is winning support from MPs for an alternative plan to buy up the annual poppy harvest for morphine, which is in short supply.

The Guardian

7.11.07

It was only when the police came knocking on Dan Butcher's door that his wife discovered he had a problem. For almost a decade, Butcher, a successful City banker, had kept his cocaine addiction - which at its height amounted to eight grams a day - a secret from family, friends and colleagues. "When you are an addict, you think you are the only person in the world who is going through it," says Butcher, 34. "It was only when I said 'I need help' that my recovery could begin."

Just over 12 months, a stint in the Priory rehabilitation clinic and hundreds of support meetings later, Butcher is launching the Recovery Network, the first interactive TV channel and internet portal for people affected by addiction.

He says his brother, an alcoholic who will not seek outside help for his addiction, was the catalyst for the idea. He says: "I kept thinking about him drinking in front of the television and thought, 'Why not bring the same style of support I got at the Priory into Simon's living room?'"

The network website, launched on Monday, provides online information, advice and support for addicts and their families. Similar to social networking sites such as Facebook, it allows users - anonymously if they choose - a profile page where they can post video diaries about their recovery and talk about their experiences. Chat rooms provide live support along with interactive therapy sessions. The TV channel, which will go on air on Sky early next year, will have discussion and interactive therapy programmes and a 24-hour help line.

Harry Shapiro, from the charity Drugscope, has reservations about the format. He says: "Anything that encourages people to get help is extremely welcome, as long as people don't imagine that this is a substitute for getting proper face-to-face treatment."

But Butcher insists that the Recovery Network is designed to complement, not replace support. "This is an extra tool for people in recovery," he says. "And, as far as I know, there are not many group sessions at 4 o'clock in the morning."

Funded by sponsors and advertising, a £5 subscription fee covers the interactive tools on the website and TV channel after an initial free trial. "If people are serious about recovery, then £5 a month is a small price to pay," Butcher says.

As well as helping recovering addicts, Butcher wants to break preconceptions. "I want to make it easier to admit that you are an addict without the fear of being labelled a sad, weak, good-fornothing loser," he says. "Addiction is an illness, not a personal weakness."

07/11/2007

The Government should force everyone but the disabled to work or cut off their benefits, says a report by a leading economic think-tank which accuses Gordon Brown of being soft on the work shy. Up to 1 million could lose incapacity benefits A campaign designed to stop benefit fraud actually raised the numbers of fraudulent claims

If no work is available, people should be compelled to undertake community service, according to the Adam Smith Institute's report, which urges a complete overhaul of welfare policy in the UK.

The free market think-tank says generous benefits are a serious barrier to work and - in some parts of the country - payments are high enough to "live a relatively comfortable existence".

More than three million working-age Britons have been on benefits for over a year. But while the Government claims to impose various conditions on benefits, millions of people who could still work do not, says the report.

Pointing out that there are at least 51 separate benefits now compared with just seven in 1948, it says confusion in the system, coupled with a feeling among young people that they should be financially supported until they find a "good job", puts people off finding work.

Tax credits alone have cost the UK more than £1 billion in fraud this year, it says, while an advertising campaign designed to encourage people to stop benefit fraud actually raised the numbers of fraudulent claims as people realised how easy it was.

Under the institute's plans, all people of working age who do not meet national disability criteria would face "immediate work requirements". Job centres would also be privatised and paid by results, and town halls would be responsible for paying benefits, funded out of a central Government grant.

Any absence from work without good cause would trigger a reduction in benefit payments. Those with serious educational deficiencies would receive training and those suffering from drug or alcohol dependency would be required to receive treatment.

Mothers under 16 would only receive benefits if they lived with an adult - probably her parents - and were in education.

Similar reforms in America, signed into law by President Clinton, reduced welfare rolls by half, from 5.5 per cent in 1994 to just 2.1 per cent in 2000, it says.

According to the report's author, Katharine Hirst, the Government's approach to reform has been too timid for too long. She said: "The time has come for a radical overhaul of the benefits system. "If we really want to enhance self-dependence, provide a safety net for the genuinely needy and tackle child poverty, nothing less will suffice."

Dr Madsen Pirie, the institute's chairman, added: "In welfare policy, tinkering has been the order of the day. "Lacking any coherent vision of what welfare should aim to achieve, governments of various complexions have merely shuffled the rules and tweaked a system that is socially toxic to many of its recipients. "This report shows a clear vision of what welfare should be like in future, and sets out the stages by which it can be taken there.

Afghan and international narcotics experts have strongly criticised a proposed pilot project to grow opium poppy legally in Afghanistan for use in medicines. The scheme is the brainchild of the Senlis Council, a think-tank working on security, development and counter-narcotics issues. It has the backing of the European Parliament and will go to European Union foreign ministers for consideration at a meeting later this month.

But while the idea is unlikely to win the support of ministers, the parliament's move has left officials in Afghanistan fuming. The Senlis Council argues that efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation haven't worked. Worse still, it says, eradication programmes have driven poppy farmers into the arms of the Taleban.

So why not cut the ground out from under the feet of the warlords and the Taleban, without depriving poor farmers of their livelihoods? Why not set up pilot projects where whole villages would be licensed to grow poppy legally? It's been done successfully in India, Thailand and Turkey, so why not Afghanistan?

Successful model

This is the core of the Senlis proposal. The poppy would be processed into morphine for medical use, using laboratories based in Afghan villages. The licences would be given to villages, not individual farmers. If one farmer sold poppy for heroin, the whole village would lose its licence. This is the model followed successfully by microfinance projects elsewhere.

Norine McDonald of the Senlis Council says it's the only viable alternative. Poppy cultivation is increasing; efforts to switch farmers to alternative livelihoods have been unsuccessful.

Southern Afghanistan, where most of the opium poppy is grown, has suffered from a drought for several years. Poppy is a notably drought-resistant crop. Farmers would need expensive irrigation systems to switch to other crops, she says. "The idea that southern Afghanistan has an agricultural future is false," she argues. "By allowing pharmaceutical processing at village level, young men can be trained for light industrial work. This is important for the future of Afghanistan."

But officials working to stem the opium trade from Afghanistan are appalled. "Poppy is supporting terrorism and drug dealers," says Afghanistan's acting narcotics minister, Khodaidad (who, like many Afghans, has only one name). "The Senlis Council and the European Parliament are supporting insecurity in Afghanistan."

Afghanistan's mullahs issued a fatwa (decree), saying people must not grow poppy because it is haram (forbidden in Islam), he says.

Opium is banned under the Afghan constitution, and the government opposes any form of legalisation.

Licensing the sale of poppy for medical purposes won't get rid of the demand for illegal opium, warns a British narcotics official in Afghanistan who preferred not to be named. In fact, he believes it would just create a new cash crop for farmers, meaning that even more opium would be grown. Many farmers grow poppy under duress, he points out. The Afghan police would be hard-pressed to stop drug traffickers from forcing farmers to divert part or all of their crop for heroin.

"Afghanistan needs a rule-of-law structure to stop people growing opium," he says. "But if it had a rule-of-law structure, it wouldn't have an opium problem in the first place."

A European Commission (EC) document obtained by the BBC argues that buying poppy from farmers could have a perverse effect. "Farmers could see this as an incentive to further expand production. This would not be an appropriate use of resources for the international donor community or the Afghan government."

Officials say 600kg of opium was found in this raid in Herat And the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has serious reservations. "At the moment, in the Afghan context, any proposal should be taken with utmost caution," says Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the head of UNODC's Europe and West and Central Asia desk.

The idea of laboratories in the villages is problematic, he says. "Where will the precursor chemicals [needed to convert poppy into opiates] come from, and who will control them?" he asks. "Who would ensure they're not diverted to other frameworks?"

The Senlis Council says there's a shortage of medical opiates on the world market, especially in developing countries, which Afghanistan can fill. But the British narcotics official disputes this.

The International Narcotics Control Board, which licenses countries to produce opiates legally, has a two-year surplus, he says. "Developing countries don't have opiates, but they don't have penicillin or aspirin, either," he adds.

And he questions the economic benefits the Senlis scheme would bring. The price of legal opiates on the world market is $35 to $40 a kilogram. Illegal opiates fetch nearly three times as much, around $100 a kilo. The EC says "exorbitant subsidies" could be needed to bridge the gap between legal and illegal prices.

In the end, the British official says, poppy-for-medicine would undermine the authority of the Afghan government. It would be impossible to justify allowing one village to grow poppy under licence while eradicating the same crop just a few kilometres away.

Counter-narcotics experts acknowledge that similar schemes have worked in other countries which used to have a serious drug problem, such as Pakistan and Thailand. But Afghanistan, they say, just isn't ready.

With violence and instability still wracking the country, they fear that any move to legitimise poppy production could make a bad situation even worse.

Belfast Telegraph

A 14-year-old boy doused himself in petrol after taking the same pills as tragic Dean Clarke, it has emerged. Tonight on Insight we investigate the drugs being dealt to the children and adults of Tigers Bay in north Belfast. And we examine the UDA's links to the drugs being peddled on the streets where Dean Clarke took 22 pills, known as Blues.

The 16-year-old died in hospital in the early hours of November 3 after a suicide attempt on the Limestone Road just days earlier. Ross Cowan chatted with Dean hours before he tried to take his life on Sunday, October 28.

"I said 'what about you mate, are you all right?' and he never said to me about the Saturday night or anything and, being none the wiser, I didn't have a clue either about the drugs. But it came as a shock to me on the Sunday night as I'd seen him on the Sunday morning and he was happy.''

We can reveal that 14-year-old Alistair Doherty, who took Blues on the same day as Dean, has also tried to take his life.

"He was brought home to my house by the police, doused from head to toe in petrol,'' says his sister Lynsey Doherty. "When he doused himself, the petrol must have soaked the lighter. The lighter was incapable of flicking. If that lighter had flicked, that child, God forgive me, that child would have been dead. "When we questioned him about the petrol he said something about Blues but we didn't actually catch on.''

These pills are called Blues because of their colour, but not all tablets are the same. Some contain Diazepam, the horse tranquillers Ketamine, and rat poisoning, which is designed to thin the blood. Dean's family and other residents in the community have blamed a UDA man for supplying these deadly drugs. On Remembrance Sunday, the UDA declared its weapons were put beyond use, and vowed to stamp out drug dealing. But one drug dealer tells Insight about his deal with the UDA.

"I was approached about 18 months ago to sell drugs for the UDA. I sold blow,'' he says. "When you were buying a kilo, you had to pay an extra £300 or so to sell in their area, for them to protect you. I cut them up and sold them in ounces. It was a good living, too good to miss out on ... "The drugs are bringing in the UDA far too much money for the UDA leadership to stop it altogether.''

Lynsey Doherty says her young brother has felt the wrath of the UDA over his anti-social behaviour. He has received a number of so-called punishment beatings, the first when he was 11 years old.

She recalls an attack just weeks ago: "He was left for dead at the bottom of the street, not only choking on his own vomit but taking a fit. He was left basically for dead with boot marks on his head.''

She is damning of the UDA.

"They class themselves as the - what would I say? - local authority. They're taking care of their community in the way that they feel like. That's my opinion, but whether people would agree with it is a different matter. They think that basically, it's their district, it's their rules.''

After taking the Blues pills, Alistair's behaviour spiralled out of control. He wrecked the family home. Uncontrollable, they had him arrested. While in a detention centre, he tried to take his own life - three times. He is now back at home.

"They don't know whether or not - with him taking these tablets - he has actually taken a kind of mental breakdown,'' says Lynsey Doherty. "At the end of the day, it's different if it's an adult. You know the score. If you're an adult, you know the risk that you're taking. A child doesn't. A child gets a quick buzz, a quick high. A child doesn't worry about the consequences or the side effects.''

Ryan Longman (16) also tells the programme he had noticed something different about his cousin Dean.

"I saw him a couple of days before and I knew there was something wrong with him. I knew he was on tablets but I didn't know what the tablets were,'' he says. "His eyes were all funny. I've been drunk myself and you don't go like that when you're drunk. I knew definitely there was something else in him.''

Dean's friend, 16-year-old Jamie McDonald, admits he took the Blues too. His last fix was shortly before Dean died.

He took 12 tablets. Asked how he felt on the pills, Jamie says: "To be honest I felt good, the next day I felt like s**t.' Drugs just ruin your life. They messed up my life. "I missed a lot of school. I was a good student before I started drugs and then I started taking drugs and I missed more school, and I was taking days off to take drugs, get drugs. I was completely obsessed with them.''

Despite Dean's death, the drugs are still being dealt to the young in Tigers Bay.

"A couple of friends are still taking them,"' says Jamie.

But the Blues aren't just a drug for the young. One mother-of-eight tells the programme that she took these pills. She recently handed over her supply to a community meeting. "I bought 20 in the first batch, then 25," she reveals. "I started on one, then two, then four a night. The second batch was different, even stronger. The third batch, I passed out in the bath. My daughter had to lift me out. I couldn't remember a thing. It scared me. I stopped taking them.''

On top of these Blues the mother, who does not want to be identified, had been taking 14 painkillers a day. She admits she is addicted to prescription drugs. "I'm sitting here now with the shakes," she says. "My kids were off school for over a week. You just don't want to get out of bed. You don't live, you survive. That's just what it's like round here.''

The mothers of Tigers Bay are united in a campaign to stamp out drug dealing. With a UDA man accused of supplying the pills Dean took, they believe the leadership is fully aware of the extent of the dealing among its ranks.

Anjie Wallace says: "Being the leading group of the Tigers Bay area they must know what drugs are coming in and what drugs are going out because it's like everything else, there has to be money crossing somebody's hands. "They must know because they're bound to be taking money off these dealers.''

See Archive for earlier stories

Scotland urged to ‘be brave’ and introduce drug consumption rooms
Sunday Herald: 11.12.07
Call to modernise approach to heroin use

THE UK'S former deputy drugs tsar Mike Trace has said Scotland needs to be more "brave and creative" and introduce controversial drug consumption rooms (DCRs) as part of its drug strategy.

Trace, now chief executive of the International Drug Policy Consortium, a non-governmental organisation, spoke to the Sunday Herald ahead of his first visit to Scotland. He will speak at the Scottish Drugs Forum's Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh on Tuesday about the implications of global drug policy on Scotland.

He said policy makers in developed Western countries such as England and Scotland "have to be much braver and more creative on following what would appear to make a bigger difference. They policy makers need to get off the fence."

advertisementHe added: "If integrating our chaotic drugs users more in services with less stigma is the correct path, the sort of directions you should be going in is drug consumption rooms; whole community services that bring drugs users into the fold, instead of keeping them separate.

"We know that well-managed services of this type make a big difference and we don't implement them because we are concerned about looking like we are being too nice and liberal to drug users."

Trace has long been an advocate of harm-reduction services such as methadone prescriptions. He was deputy to the UK's first drug tsar, Keith Helliwell, and played a central role in the creation and implementation of the UK National Drug Strategy from 1997 to 2000. In his later role as head of demand reduction at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), he was forced to resign after just eight weeks over allegations he was promoting a liberal drugs policy against the wishes of US donors.

UNODC promotes abstinence and condemns member states for implementing harm-reduction strategies such as DCRs, which have also become known as "shooting galleries".

Trace said Scottish policy makers "shouldn't be afraid of the UN". "If Scotland really wanted to do drug consumption rooms and heroin prescribing, it will get a visit from the UN, but it will be able to point to other countries which set a precedent."

Germany, Switzerland and Holland have all introduced DCRs in recent years, and found the number of overdoses and drug-related deaths fell.

Trace said there are "major weaknesses and problems in the UN's position on this". He also criticised the UN for not modernising its position on drugs.

"The UN agencies have been very irresponsible in repeatedly responding to countries who have implemented harm-reduction measures by criticising them for being too liberal. That's where the issue really comes to roost for a country such as Scotland in their room for manoeuvre to experiment with things like consumption rooms and heroin prescription," he said.

In Scotland there has long been debate over the merits of abstinence programmes and harm-reduction services, but Trace said he was concerned that the voices in the debate ringing the loudest are from "dinosaurs".

"It's not inconceivable for ministers to say if nothing works forget it, arrest people if they are caught with drugs and if they get HIV infection it's their problem. That's what worries me about the current debate."

The Scottish Drugs Forum has advocated the use of DCRs and heroin prescription, but ministers have always rejected the idea.

Dave Liddell, director of SDF, said: "They need to be part of the provision but there's a bigger social issue around the fact that we have one of the biggest drug problems in Europe and that's because of the social problems."

He added: "I think people are very concerned with what the public will think. In many respects services are being planned on the basis of how it will look to the public, rather than the needs of the 50,000 heroin using population."

Prof Neil McKeganey, head of drugs misuse at Glasgow University, said Trace's opinion was "utterly inappropriate" and that DCRs would worsen the situation.

"To me it is an utterly inappropriate advice. It is simply wrong for our government to take on a service that would make drug use easier."

A Scottish government spokesman said: "There are currently no plans to introduce heroin consumption rooms in Scotland. The prescribing of heroin is clearly not something that can be undertaken lightly as there are complex issues about security of supplies, safety of patients and around dispensing arrangements."

ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR orders have criminalised children and pushed minors into a life of crime they might not otherwise have followed, according to experts.

There are more children in the criminal justice system in the UK now than ever before, and last week the chief inspector of prisons warned we are incarcerating too many under-16s in Scotland.

While the Children's Panel system is admired across the world, international experts warn part of the problem is that Scotland defines childhood as ending at 16, whereas the legal status of childhood ends at 18 under the European Convention of the Rights of the Child.

advertisement"The UK locks up more children than any country in Europe and Asbos merely serve to formalise that criminality at an earlier stage," says Dr Nicoletta Policek, a criminologist at Lincoln University. "Asbos are counterproductive. They were meant to keep people out of prisons, but for children it often inducts them into the criminal justice system.

"There are so many ways under which they can be broken and the children find themselves in an unsuitable system as a result."

Problems of tackling youth crime are compounded by Scotland having the lowest age of criminality in the West - eight years, compared to 10 in England.

In 2004, the UN denounced the UK for its record on locking up children. Since then, the number has increased. Figures released last week show almost 4000 under-16s behind bars in the UK according to the Howard League for Penal Reform - a rise of 7% on last year.

Jaap Doek, the chairman of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, asked in 2004: "Why is this tolerated?"

Bjorn Cronstedt from the European Commission Street Children Project, gave the Kilbrandon Lecture on juvenile justice at Glasgow University last week.

He said: "The survival strategies to which many children born into poverty resort, to enable their families to survive, frequently bring them into conflict with the law and lead to further exclusion.

"With badly designed policy or legal frameworks that are not easy to implement or administrate, all too often the human cost is paid by the child."

Andrew Girvan, the children's services director of NCH Scotland, said: "Policies must address the reasons for children offending, as well as providing suitably measured sanctions for the offences.

"We welcome the view of the Scottish government that there has to be a greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention, rather than on quick fixes that don't meet the individual needs of children and have no long-term impact on offending or antisocial behaviour."

A spokesman for the Children's Society said the UK sends 10 times as many juveniles to prison as Spain. He said: "Prisons are degrading and dangerous for children, stealing dignity, stealing childhood even stealing lives. What's more, they do little to prevent crime.

"On the contrary, by exposing children to a frightening adult world where bullying, violence and racism are rife, criminal behaviour is perpetuated. Nearly 80% leaving custody reoffend within a year."

The Early Intervention Case Management Project in Edinburgh works with vulnerable families where the behaviour of children under 12 gives cause for concern. A spokesman said projects aimed at curbing antisocial behaviour had proved cost-effective in terms of reducing risks of long-term social exclusion, poor educational attainment and the considerable costs to society that can result.

A spokesman for the Scottish government said there is now a review into the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2004 (Scotland), but there are no plans to repeal it.

He said: "The government's aim is to consider what is working well, and what could work better. Its priority is to reduce the antisocial behaviour that blights communities, and to increase the capacity of communities and local agencies to respond effectively."

'Useless' drug farmer faces jail

BBC 20.11.07

A drug dealer who claims to smoke more than 14,000 cannabis joints every year has been told he will be jailed for a failed attempt to grow his own crop. Stuart Duncan bought a sophisticated cannabis farm kit on the internet but when his home was raided only a single wilting plant was found by detectives. His own lawyer described the attempt to cultivate the drug as "virtually useless" at Perth Sheriff Court.

Sheriff Robert McCreadie told Duncan, 44, he will be jailed next week. The sheriff said he would first give Duncan 10 days of freedom on bail to sort out care arrangements for his ailing partner as "an act of humanity". Duncan, of Strathmore Avenue, Coupar Angus, Perthshire, admitted producing cannabis at his home on 22 June this year.

Sickly plant

Fiscal depute Stuart Richardson told the court: "It's a peculiar case because the police got information there might be controlled drugs at his house. "The police must have taken a van because they took away a whole lot of equipment which might have been suitable for growing cannabis plants. "But all that had been produced as a result of all this equipment was one rather sickly cannabis plant. That was all they found."

Solicitor Ian Houston, defending, said: "The description of it as rather sickly is an apt one. He had grown the plant and it failed and he was on the verge of discarding it. "He had grown only one plant which he had decided to commit to the bin as being virtually useless."

He said his client had suffered a workplace accident 22 years earlier and had started using cannabis several years ago for chronic pain. Mr Houston said Duncan had done research on the internet about growing his own and had then paid £50 for an elaborate hydroponics system.

"This is a man who has used cannabis for so long. He knows it is illegal, but it is the better option as far as he is concerned. "There is some medical recognition of the beneficial effect cannabis can have for someone who is in constant severe pain."

Sheriff McCreadie said: "I am quite clear there should be a custodial sentence. You will be allowed a short period to make arrangements for your partner."

Sentence was deferred until 30 November.

Earlier this year, Duncan was jailed at the same court for three months after he admitted dealing cannabis to fellow hospital patients. Duncan, who was also jailed in 1991 for drugs offences, claimed he was only dealing cannabis to other patients who wanted to use it for pain relief.

He told the court at the time that he regularly smoked 40 joints each day to numb the pain he suffered from a long-term leg problem.

Crazy sentences show justice has gone to pot
Evening News
27.11.07

AS a small nation on a mission to develop and compete in an increasingly complex international environment, it's vital that we waste as many of our resources as possible. That is one message you could take from a recent court case.

Stuart Duncan bought a cannabis farm kit over the internet. As you might expect from the productive efforts of someone who thought buying a cannabis farm kit over the internet was a sound investment, he failed to produce anything other than one sickly plant. His lawyer described the attempt as "virtually useless".

And now Stuart Duncan is going to be sent to a prison. A prison where he will need to be fed, watered, cared for and guarded in an extraordinary use of resources that seems to scream that we have nothing better to do with taxpayers' money.

Before I heard of this case, I was under the impression that our prisons were rather full already. I was under the impression from other sentences that a prison sentence was something that should be avoided at all costs, even when demonstrable physical harm has been visited upon innocent people.

The other week a former nurse who injected a four-month-old girl with a potentially fatal dose of insulin was spared a prison term when her case came before the High Court in Edinburgh. Earlier this year, a Muirhouse chap who shot a heavily pregnant woman with his airgun was placed on probation.

The distinction between these crimes and the dopey dope farmer is that one can identify clear victims who sustained real injury. Who has been harmed by Stuart Duncan's crime? The principle victim appears to himself, unless one considers being outed nationally by your own lawyer as an incompetent buffoon some form of career goal.

I do understand that a crime has been committed, and that drugs are a serious problem. I do know that breaking the law is, er, illegal and should be discouraged. Just to be completely clear, I also understand that if everyone went around just breaking the law then the world would be a worse place. I just don't understand what a jail sentence for this guy is going to achieve, specifically when compared to the lack of a jail term in the other cases mentioned.

It's not like there are not worthwhile alternatives. The guy who took pot-shots at the pregnant woman got community service. Many people think that this is not punishment. Part of the problem is that community service sounds friendly; if we were told that the sentence was not community service but "cleaning public toilet U-bends", then at least some people might be willing to acknowledge this is both of service to the community and punishment. So why don't they tell us these things? In other countries - notably the United States - it is common for community service sentences to have the service components notified to the community in question.

More importantly, why can't we choose what service to the community is provided by the convicted criminals? After all, we are the community and we should surely know better than anyone else what it is we want done. Here is a prediction - we would have cleaner streets, cleaner public toilets and less graffiti.

Not only would ordinary taxpayers be able to see criminals working for their salvation, we would also be able to enjoy the benefits. Potential criminals might also be deterred from seeing the very public role they might be required to perform, particularly if they are imaginative enough to think what condition the average public toilet U-bend might be in.

Perhaps most importantly of all, we would have emptier prisons and emptier prisons mean cheaper prisons. For once everyone was able to see the full range of beneficial effects from a genuinely democratic form of community service, there would be substantially less opposition to such sentences. So as I asked in the first place, why is this guy going to prison?

THE police chief spearheading Scotland's war on drugs quit his post last night, blaming bureaucracy, under-manning and lack of co-operation.

Graeme Pearson, head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), took an explosive sideswipe at ministers and fellow police chiefs as he left office more than two years early, declaring he "would not apply for his own job".

Pearson complained that his agency had never been fully staffed, revealed some Scottish police forces refused to release experienced officers for anti-drug campaigns, and suggested there was a lack of ambition at the highest levels in dealing with the menace of drugs.

Pearson, one of Scotland's most experienced and respected police leaders, also condemned the chief constable of North Wales as "crackers" for suggesting all illegal drugs should be legitimised. Pearson added that alcohol was the biggest drug of concern in Scotland, saying many drug addicts started by binge-drinking aged 11 or 12.

Last night, one leading politician said Pearson's departure was a great loss that would "delight the gangsters". Although Pearson announced his resignation earlier this year, few expected him to deliver such a devastating verdict on progress in the drugs war. His post as SCDEA director-general is unlikely to be filled for months.

Pearson took up the job in March 2004 and he was not due to step down until 2010. He is credited with turning around the fortunes of the SCDEA, which seized Class A drugs worth more than £60m in the past 18 months.

Explaining his reasons for stepping down in an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, Pearson said: "The agency has never been fully staffed and I would say, on average, is about 10% down on what it should be.

"One of the problems is that some of the forces find it difficult to release staff to us because the pressures, at force level, encourage forces to keep them there. "The support has been willing but the reality has been weak. It is the attention to detail which the agency needs. We need the top people because of the job we do. Let's get the resources in to do that. The agency needs the best to be the best, and that has to be recognised."

Pearson also criticised the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA), an umbrella body set up by ministers to take overall control of the drugs agency, criminal records and fingerprinting. It was created to streamline the police, but many believe it has only led to new layers of bureaucracy.

Pearson said: "My estimation for the agency is not matched by the ambition of the SPSA. I think it is best for me if I go and a new director-general comes in. I could not guarantee that in two-and-a-half years' time I would look back and see I had achieved what I wanted to."

A police insider close to Pearson said: "The agency is at the forefront of fighting serious and organised crime and is held in extremely high regard both across the UK and abroad.

"But because of the SPSA, the agency is becoming locked into bureaucracy. If the agency had not been working well before the SPSA took over then that would have been a different matter, but it was."

The insider confirmed Pearson was also frustrated that some chief constables in Scotland were reluctant to commit their own top officers to the national battle against drugs.

Pearson also used his interview to reiterate his opposition to any moves to legitimise illegal drugs, a call recently made by the chief constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom.

Pearson said: "Richard Brunstrom is crackers to say a thing like that. The Misuse of Drugs Act was put in place because it appeared that drug use in Britain was out of control. He has not thought it out at all. "Will we have drug stores on every high street? Will you have medical professionals handing them out to the public? And what is a legitimate drug? Is it Ecstasy, cannabis, heroin, crack cocaine? Anything?"

Pearson also highlighted alcohol as "the biggest drug of concern in Scotland".

He said: "I regularly visit inmates at places like Polmont [Young Offenders' Institute] and I ask them: 'Is there a gateway to drug abuse?' And every time the answer comes back: 'Yes, alcohol.' "I talk to the prisoners and so many of them tell me that they began at the age of 11 or 12 years old, binge drinking before moving on to drugs, starting with cannabis and then heading into other drugs. They end up skipping school and then, eventually, they are kicked out and they end up without any qualifications and before they know it they are unable to do anything with their lives."

Paul Martin MSP, Labour's justice spokesman, said lessons had to be learned from Pearson's decision to quit early and the reasons behind it.

He said: "Scotland needs people like Graeme Pearson. He understands the situation. Not only did he show determination, he showed real leadership to get rid of some of the worst criminals in Scotland. News that he is going will delight the gangsters. "Bureaucracy needs to be kept in check. The bad guys do not work with bureaucracy but we never seem to be able to take bureaucracy out of the mix. The Executive has to show initiative and do something about this."

Bill Aitken, Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said: "The SCDEA was starting to cut off the heads of the [drug] trade and was exceptionally successful in doing so under Pearson's leadership. Police forces have got to realise that the agency's activities are pivotal in the fight against crime and there has to be a wider sense of engagement. And the role of the SPSA has got to be examined."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "While most of the points raised relate to the previous administration, the new Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill has already hit the ground running and has made significant progress in the first six months of government in addressing these concerns."

Two grey 2" x 1" plastic tubs of powder methadone were stolen from a pharmacy in Edinburgh. The substance was described as "dangerous" by Lothian and Borders Police. Dr Charles Swainson, medical director of NHS Lothian, said: "If the contents of one of these containers is consumed it can kill. "This drug is extremely dangerous and if anyone finds it, I would urge them to contact the police immediately."

The tubs were stolen between October 31 and November 3.

Comment: not in a CD cabinet and unattended? Presumably there'll be some disciplinary action...won't there?

BBC
2.11.07

Scottish judges have been given tough new sentencing guidelines in a bid to crack down on cannabis farms. Scotland's senior judge said the move was needed to tackle a big increase in the farms, which are often set up by organised gangs in rented homes. Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice General, said even low level cannabis "gardeners" should expect to face between four and five years in prison.

Cannabis plants worth £10m have been seized from illegal farms this year. Higher sentences for the crime - which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment - will be reserved for those involved at a more sophisticated level or repeat offenders.

Guilty pleas would see a reduction in the length of the prison sentence imposed. The guidance came as Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lord Nimmo Smith and Lord Carloway, rejected an appeal by failed Chinese asylum seeker Zhi Pen Lin against a jail sentence of three years and nine months for producing cannabis.

Lord Hamilton said: "The courts must seek to deter individuals from lending their services to such activity - even where offenders are in circumstances where the pressure on them to participate may be heavy. "The illegal cultivation of cannabis by organised criminals on a substantial commercial scale appears to be a relatively new phenomenon in Scotland."

The appeal judges heard that since a police operation was launched in December 2006 thousands of cannabis plants had been seized with an estimated yield worth more than £10m on the streets. More than 50 people have been arrested, mainly of Chinese or Vietnamese nationality. Rented houses were often used to produce the drug crop.

Lord Hamilton said there had been "a degree of disparity" in sentences, at least in the High Court, handed down to those involved in a relatively minor way. Most of those dealt with had been "foot soldiers" in the drug operations, tending crops under cultivation.

He said, as a significant number of other cases were likely to come before the courts, it was appropriate that there should be guidance over sentencing. Lin, 32, was caught tending a crop of 849 cannabis plants worth £84,900 at a house in South Street, Forfar.

The five-room bungalow had been leased from its owner. When police forced entry in March this year they found the whole house apart from the kitchen was devoted to growing the drug. The curtains were closed and doors and floors covered with plastic sheeting. Elaborate electrical cabling had been laid to supply heat and light to the plants.

Lin said he had been approached by a man to stay at the house and water some plants. The court heard he had fled China and paid money to a "snakehead" gang to make the journey to Britain. The first offender had come to realise that he was involved in a drugs operation at the house in Scotland, but had no other option than to do what was asked of him as he had no other source of income, a roof over his head or food. Lawyers acting for Lin challenged the sentence imposed on him claiming it was excessive.

But the appeal judges said: "While the sentence imposed might be described as on the severe side, it is not in our view excessive."

The checks were started after discussions between police, parents and the school early last year. It was in response to a number of incidents across the country where drugs were found on school premises. Mr Stiff said that both he and head teacher Alex Cowie were determined that would not happen at the Douglas Ewart.

"We agreed that from time to time we would randomly introduce drugs dogs into the school," he said. "It was really to reassure the parents to make sure they could send their kids to school safely knowing it was a safe learning environment for everybody.

"We have done it two or three times over the last 12-month period or so and I am pleased to announce that we have had no positive indications at all from the drugs dogs."

Comment: which proves absolutely nothing. the dogs won't respond to solvents, tobacco, alcohol and may the fact that they haven't responded proves nothing. It certainly doesn't demonstrate any deterrent effect, and doesn't prove use hasn't been taking place. But hey, as long as it reassures people that all is well, that's great.

Police are cracking down on drugs misuse at night-time venues across Carmarthenshire using sophisticated testing equipment.
Carmarthenshire Community Safety Partnership is seeking the support of night club owners to take a zero tolerance approach to the problem which has strong links to violent crime.

In the first clamp-downs on drug abuse using a drug itemiser machine revellers have been randomly swabbed before they entered certain licensed premises with the manager’s consent.
Similar operations in Swansea have been successful in assessing whether anyone has been in close contact with illegal substances.

In 263 tests carried out in Carmarthen 20 were shown to have high readings. Three people were arrested and cocaine seized.
Several nightclub managers gave their full cooperation to the initiative.

Community Safety Sergeant David Haskins said: “The itemiser has been used twice in Carmarthen with quite dramatic effect.
“It will be used in Llanelli and Ammanford and elsewhere where deemed appropriate in the near future.

“Officers trained in the use of the equipment said the majority of night time Carmarthen clubbers were first shocked then encouraged by what we strived to achieve.”

CSP chair Mark James said: “Drug and alcohol misuse combined contributes to a significant proportion of the violent crime we experience in Carmarthenshire.

“The CSP is seeking random and unannounced use of the itemiser to be a condition of licensing at all premises.
“Tackling violent crime is an ongoing process county wide for neighbourhood policing teams who are setting up another CSP initiative - the ‘Behave or Be Banned Scheme’ within certain licensed premises.”

See Archive for earlier stories

Lancashire Evening Post
21.11.07

Police who raided a house discovered thousands of pounds worth of cannabis drying on a washing line, a court has been told. Weighing scales and bags of the drug were also found in the property on Fazackerley Street, Ashton. Duncan Birrell, Preston Crown Court prosecutor, said cannabis with a street value of £3,000 was discovered in the property. David Holderness claimed to police that a man had issued "implied threats" to him and he then brought the drugs to his home.

He claimed the unnamed person would have collected the cannabis later. He would be given about 30 bags of cannabis for allowing his home to be used to dry the drug. Holderness, 37, of Fazackerley Street, pleaded guilty to possessing the Class C drug with intent to supply and to producing cannabis. Among his 60 previous convictions was an offence for cultivating cannabis, earlier this year, the court heard.

That conviction was linked to the latest offence. Jon Close, defending, said the same person who had left the drug had lost £2,000 worth of equipment which had been used to cultivate the cannabis. He turned up at his home and told Holderness: "You lost our equipment and you owe us money." Although there was "no explicit threat", he was told to look after and dry the cannabis.

Mr Close told the court that for the first time in his life Holderness had obtained work. He had taken cannabis in the past for his depression which had made the condition worse. Mr Close told the court the defendant had been earmarked by others as one of the "weakest members of society".

Judge Christopher Cornwall said cannabis was still a highly dangerous drug which Holderness had played a part in distributing. However, because of his personal circumstances, the judge said he had decided it would not be in the public interest to send him to prison immediately.

The 36-week jail term is to be suspended for 18 months with costs of £250.

See Archive for earlier stories

Police seized 38 cannabis plants and expensive hydraulic [odds are they were hydroponic equipment, but hey the plants might have been very heavy!] equipment when they executed a warrant at a property in Lytham Road.

Items including high voltage lighting, power units and ventilation equipment were all removed from the house by officers from the South East Neighbourhood Policing Team.

advertisementA 36-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of cultivating cannabis and abstracting electricity after the raid, on Monday. He was bailed pending further inquiries.

Community beat manager for Highercroft and Longshaw, PC Gareth Brooks said: "This warrant was carried out as a result of information received from members of the community and will have a significant impact on the quality of life for local residents."

Highercroft ward councillor Andy Kay said: "This has not been a problem in the area but the thing is, wherever this happens, it should not be tolerated."

People who have concerns about drug dealing in their area are urged to contact the police on 0845 1 25 35 45 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

In general, intensively cultivated cannabis plants produce a harvest of around £500.

Class A drugs have been stolen from a police dog worker's van.

DANGEROUS Class A drugs used to train sniffer dogs –– including heroin, ecstasy and cocaine –– were stolen from a van in Bilsthorpe yesterday. Police say the items were in the possession of a dog worker, who had locked them in a digital safe and placed them inside his Peugeot Partner Van.

But thieves struck by breaking into the van on Deerdale Lane and taking the grey 12inch x 12inch safe sometime between 11.30am-12.30pm. The drugs taken included 38 off-white ecstasy pills split into three bags, four grams of heroin and three grams of cocaine.

The heroin is of normal 'street' purity but the cocaine is thought to be stronger. The drugs were contained in three clear plastic boxes with blue lids marked BOX 2E, BOX 1H and BOX 3C.

Now, police say they concerned the drugs may get into the wrong hands. Chief Inspector Mark Holland said: "These drugs were in the possession of a dog handler, who works for a private company and is licensed by the Home Office to keep controlled drugs for training purposes. "The stolen drugs are potentially harmful to anyone who consumes them and we want them returned as soon as possible. "I urge anyone who has any information about these drugs, the digital safe or the offenders to give the police a call."

Comment: And we assume, some disciplinary action will be taken against the officer in question?! We wait and see!

23.11.07

Horncastle parents and school children are being warned of a hoax email circulating which falsely states that an illegal substance is being given to pupils in the playground.

Lincolnshire Police are aware of information being published, mainly via personal e-mails and the internet, concerning what is termed as a 'new drug'.

The message gives information about a substance which is allegedly known as 'Strawberry Quick.'

The message claims that this drug, based on crystal meth, looks and smells like a strawberry sweet or type of confectionary and is being handed out to school children in school playgrounds. It also allegedly comes in several other flavours.

Lincolnshire Police say It seems that this message is a hoax or urban myth which originates from the USA.

A force spokesman said: "We have long advised parents and school teachers to instruct children not to accept sweets from strangers and such advice is still relevant but there is no truth in the rumours surrounding the use and supply of any such drug within Lincolnshire.

"Lincolnshire is a very safe place to live but we do discover children and young people using illegal drugs both inside and outside schools. "We would ask for parents, school teachers and members of the general public to be vigilant and to report any concerns or suspicions to the police. "However, they should disregard the information as described above and delete any e-mails they receive regarding the drugs supply."

this is Lincolnshire

Date rape drugs are becoming the new weapon of choice for robbers, a charity has warned. The number of people falling prey to drug-assisted theft is on the rise, claims the national Roofie Foundation. And 60 per cent of drink spiking victims are men, it says.

The charity also believes the number of women aged 30-plus who are being date raped is climbing. Now a poster campaign warning against the dangers of drink spiking is being rolled out across county pubs.

The campaign, by Louth-based charity Jigsaw, is aimed at revellers who are out and about over Christmas. Jigsaw sexual assault counsellor Sue Daniels said: "We want every pub in Lincolnshire to display these to raise awareness of the dangers of drink spiking."

Lincolnshire police said it doesn't have figures to back up the charities' claims because so many incidents of drink spiking go unreported. Graham Rhodes of the Roofie Foundation said: "There are no official figures, but in the 11 years since we have been open we have dealt with 9,000 incidents reported to our helpline, and we believe this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"Since the smoking ban was introduced we have seen a 150 per cent increase in calls, as people leave drinks to go outside for a cigarette. "But there hasn't been an increase in drug rapes, the increase is all in robberies after drink spiking, and around 60 per cent of the robbery victims are male."

Albert Axton, 71, from South Gorley in the New Forest, who suffered from heart disease, collapsed in a meeting with wing representatives and prison staff at Winchester prison.

In September 2006, Mr Axton was sentenced to 18 months in prison after a jury convicted him of cultivating and conspiracy to supply cannabis. The judge at the time said a three-year sentence would have been appropriate but he was taking into account the defendant's poor health and previous good character.

The inquest in Winchester heard that Mr Axton had suffered a series of health problems. He had undergone a double heart bypass and had bad arthritis in his right ankle.

He had become excited and animated during the meeting before suddenly slumping sideways in his seat.

Dr Adnan Al-Badri, consultant pathologist at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, carried out the post mortem examination on Mr Axton.

See Archive for earlier stories

Machine scores well on doors
Reading Evening Post:11.12.07
COCAINE proved to be the drug of choice for Reading revellers tested for banned substances over the weekend.

Thames Valley Police officers used the force’s new £28,000 drug itemiser to test more than 400 pubgoers at four venues from 8pm to midnight on both Friday and Saturday.

The results show Reading’s problem with recreational drugs is “no better or worse” than any other town or city centre across the country. Police swabbed people’s hands and placed the sample into the state-of-the-art drug itemiser machine, which can give a reading of the level of drug residue.

Outside Yates’s in Friar Street, 64 people were tested and six returned positive readings for cocaine, one for amphetamine, and three for cannabis.

At the Fez Club in Gun Street, 106 were tested – four returned positive readings for cocaine and five for cannabis.

At Walkabout in Wiston Terrace, Friar Street, 152 were tested – two returned positive readings for cocaine, six for cannabis and one for amphetamine.

And at Dogma in Castle Street, 100 were tested and six returned positive readings for cocaine and two for cannabis.

The operation is part of Reading Police’s Safer Streets Campaign, a partnership between police, local authorities, primary care trusts, and PubWatch, which aims to reduce violent crime. PC Kyle Bateman, who helped coordinate Operation Effusion in the town centre at the weekend, said: “Evidence suggests a strong correlation between illegal drugs, alcohol, and violent crime.

“One cheeky chap turned to his friend and said ‘let’s see how reliable this thing is’. “He returned a positive reading for cocaine and admitted going on a ‘massive drug and alcohol bender’ the night before. “He looked amazed and said he’d washed his hands. However even if you have scrubbed hands or surfaces, traces of cocaine will remain for up to six days. “This operation sends a clear message to anyone who is thinking of coming to Reading for a night out on drugs – your behaviour will not be tolerated.”

Searches on revellers who tested positive for illegal drugs found punters were not in possession of banned substances. Sergeant Darren Brown, who led the operation, added: “Clearly people are taking drugs before going on a night out and leaving their drugs at home.

“We noticed a steep rise in the numbers that tested positive for illegal drugs as the evening wore on. I would like to thank the staff at all four venues and the general public for their cooperation and support. “All four premises were impressed by the operation and have asked us to carry out future searches in the New Year.”

Pub managers barred anyone who tested positive or refused to co-operate with the test from entering the premises for the evening. No arrests were made.

However, some punters were not convinced by the force’s approach, and many believed the results to be “unreliable” and “silly”. One reveller told the Evening Post: “What if I went to the newsagents just before I went in the club, the newsagent gave me a £5 note for change and I handled it? “Now suppose a majority of cash when tested showed signs of drugs – which is well documented that it actually does, now I have crack dust on my hand and I have never taken an illegal drug in my life.”

Another punter, commenting on the Evening Post’s website www.getreading.co.uk said: “Here’s how useless that device is. “Last night I went out with some friends, I’m 51 years old, and haven’t taken drugs – cannabis – since I was at university. “That device indicated drugs on my hands and despite protesting my innocence – to which doorstaff and officers obviously agreed and said it must be traces from money I had handled – they had to ban myself from entry. This meant my wife and friends also had no point entering either. The whole thing is a joke.”

Police said they would continue drug tests throughout the festive season and into the New Year.

Northampton Chronicle
27.11.07

Kieron Harvey, aged 23, was caught with cannabis worth £668 [how much? how on earth did they arrive at that valuation?] when police raided his home in Northampton House, Wellington Street, Northampton on March 2.

Northampton Crown Court heard how officers found a large bag of cannabis at his feet as they entered the property, as well as £905 in cash, and a small amount hidden in a tin.

But as well as the cannabis, officers also discovered a canister of police-issued pepper spray which Harvey said was for his girlfriend who suffers from agoraphobia and gave her the confidence to go out.

Harvey, who admitted possession of cannabis with intent and possession of a prohibited weapon, said he had bought the drugs in bulk to save money and supply it to his friends.

Michael Waterfield, prosecuting, said: "He decided to buy the cannabis in bulk because it was cheaper and himself and two other people who he lives with would chip in. "They intended it should be smoked between them, with the defendant spending about £500 a month on cannabis."

Judge Richard Bray sentenced him to 40 weeks' imprisonment, suspended for a year, with supervision, and £200 costs. Harvey was also fined £905 for having the pepper spray. Passing sentence, he said: "This remains a serious offence. You had a warning about cannabis from the magistrates some time ago and failed to heed it and continued to use it and supply it to others. "Cannabis is not just a harmless recreational drug. Recent research has confirmed it is a drug which can contribute substantially, particularly in its modern forms, to mental illness. "This Government should never have reduced it from a class B to a class C drug. This sends out completely the wrong message to drug users in this country."

Makhan Shoker, defending, said Harvey's arrest had acted as a wake-up call and he had now started to reduce the amount of cannabis he smoked each month.

He added: "Apart from smoking cannabis with his friends at the flat, he leads a perfectly normal law-abiding life."

Slough Grammar principal Margaret Lenton arranged the checks in a bid to reinforce the school's strict anti-drugs policy. [and she labours under a misguided belief that such an approach has a detterent value]

The tests were conducted at the Lascelles Road school using a drugs itemiser machine which can detect the tiniest traces of drugs on the palm of people's hands. [including surface contamination and false postives]

The move follows last month's expulsion of a pupil at the Lascelles Road school after they were caught in possession of drugs. [which is a shame as exclusion is a key factor in exacerbating problematic drug use. Better approaches would be offering support and referral to agencies]

None of the 480 pupils scanned on Monday using the GE Ion Track device were found to be in possession of banned substances. [so that was a waste of time and money]

However, tiny traces of class C drugs were found on seven pupils, which they may have picked up in innocence, according to detection experts.

Mrs Lenton said: "We requested the itemiser test - with the backing of school governors - to reinforce the message that drugs will not be tolerated in school. Pupils were not warned about the test in advance. However, I made it clear on the first day of term that bringing in the itemiser was an option." [and, we assume with the backing of parents and pupils, and a clear explanation that they would be fully entitled to refuse to be swabbed and this refusal could not be grounds for search or disciplinary action. Except that one suspects that this was not done.]

Sergeant David Luff, who carried out the tests, said: "Sixth form pupils were gathered in the school hall and invited by the principal to file past two teachers, who took swabs from their hands.Nobody refused the test, and we provided an opportunity for pupils to request counselling or seek further information about drugs. We found traces of class C drugs on seven pupils. However, the machine can detect the tiniest traces of drugs and it is possible that those people picked up traces without knowing they'd even been in contact with drugs." [having successfully destroyed a trusting relationship between pupils and staff, the school sat back satisfied that they had a good drugs policy...]

Mrs Lenton added: "The rules are simple: if anyone is found in possession of drugs the police will be called and the student concerned will face exclusion." [thus implementing rules at odds with Government guidance on the subject.]

The itemising machine was first introduced last year and has since been used to test more than 1,000 pub and club-goers in venues across the Berkshire East police region.

27.11.07

AN ALCOHOLIC decorator has been banned from every branch of Morrisons super-market in England and Wales.

The move follows his arrest outside the Caterham branch of the store.He had stolen two bottles of rum and a bottle of vodka together worth £46.54 when police searched him on October 15. He also had a razor blade attached to a homemade handle.

Samuel Maslo, 57, appeared at Redhill Magistrates' Court on Wednesday last week. He pleaded guilty to theft and possessing an offensive weapon in public. He had been due in court on October 29 but failed to appear so a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Roger Bristow, defending, said that his client had been suffering from ill health, but agreed a medical certificate did not cover the date he should have been at the Redhill court.

Stephen Green, clerk to the court, said that the defendant had appeared at South Western Magistrates Court recently and had pleaded guilty to other matters and the case had been adjourned until November 27. He had been given bail on condition he attended a drugs rehabilitation course. Maslo pleaded guilty to failing to attend the Redhill court on October 29.

Matthew Capes, prosecuting, said that Maslo was seen coming out of Morrisons,Caterham Valley, holding a basket. Security officers said that there were three bottles of alcohol in the bag which he had not paid for. He had previously been banned from the store on November 4 last yea r. Police were called and the defendant was searched.

As well as the drinks, officers found the razor blade which the defendant said that he used to cut tobacco. Maslo, of Breakespeares Road, Ladywell, south east London, said he used the blade for cutting and trimming wallpaper and cutting up tobacco and drugs, including heroin and cocaine.

Mr Bristow said it was the first time in years that his client's drugs problem was being properly assessed. He would drink some of the alcohol he stole and sell other bottles to get money for drugs.

The bench remitted the case to South Western Magistrates Court and released the defendant on bail on condition he does not enter any Morrisons stores in England or Wales, and stays out of the borough of Reigate and Banstead and the district of Tandridge.

A STATE-OF-THE-ART drug detection kit is to be used for random tests in pubs, bars and clubs across Wycombe in a partnership between police and landlords to improve people's safety on nights out. [how?]

The £30,000 machine tests for cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamine, methamphetamine and ecstasy. Called an Ion Track Itemiser, the portable testing kit analyses swabs that have been rubbed over a person's palms. [and of course the police explained that the people had every right to refuse to be swabbed..didn't they!]

It was first tried out at Pure nightclub in High Wycombe recently, where 12 clubbers - out of 135 tested - proved positive for cocaine use and were refused entry to the club. Those who tested positive were also searched for drugs, but none were found. [and hopefully will boycott the club from now on...]

It is the first time such technology has been used in Buckinghamshire.

Sergeant Mike Hamlin said: "The reaction of the people has been very positive and several people were very interested in the machine and how it worked. We did the searches privately in the club's staff room. "All the businesses that are part of Wycombe Watch have signed up to it. We're there to make sure that people have a good night without fear that other people are under the influence of drugs." [other than alcohol, which of course has NO association with violence or offending..]

The tests were carried out with the full co-operation of Matthew Chason, general manager of Pure and the Obsession bar below it. [who was under no pressure to cooperate with this and of course the subject of how much it would help his license never came up; so it was 100% voluntary and willing...]

He said: "As a business we were very happy to be approached by Thames Valley Police to trial the Itemiser to not only be pro-active towards the night time economy within the town centre becoming more positive but also to make a better experience for the customer to know that there is a partnership between Pure and Obsession and the police to make people's experience of the venue better and a safer one."

Further random tests are planned at night spots across the town as most bars are part of the Wycombe Watch scheme to ensure their customers' safety in partnership with the police.

Crack pipes, heroin needles and drug paraphernalia litter the inside of a house at Bernwood Road, in Barton, Oxford.

For up to 10 years the neglected house has been a refuge for dealers and users and the cause of misery and intimidation for its neighbours.

These pictures taken by Thames Valley Police show the extent of drug use and damage caused to the home before its tenants were evicted this week. A court order has closed the home for three months and ordered Graham Chiswell, 50, and Vicky Collins, 26, to move out.

Last week, Oxford Magistrates' Court was told that the city council-owned house had become a den for drug users and prostitutes. The photos also show holes made in the walls and knives kept under cushions on sofas in the house. There is also a box of needles, scattered syringes on a window-sill, a spoon used to heat heroin and pipes to smoke crack cocaine and cannabis.

Pc Rob Fisher, from the Barton neighbourhood police team, said: "Residents have had problems with this house for some time."People have been coming to use and sell drugs and used needles have been found in the area.
"As well as drug issues, there has been a lot of antisocial behaviour linked to the house, such as people intimidating other residents and making a lot of noise. "There have also been reports of prostitution and the house itself is in a very bad state. "All of these issues have an impact on the residents nearby. "It raises fear of crime and is extremely unpleasant."

Police and Oxford City Council secured the closure order for the house last Thursday as part of Operation Falcon, which tackles drugs crime alongside the city council's drug caseworkers and the Crime and Nuisance Action Team (Canact).

Mr Chiswell, a heroin addict for the past 21 years, and his partner Miss Collins have been offered a care package, including drugs, health and housing. They moved out of the property on Monday. There was no evidence that the couple were dealing drugs from the house.

Mr Chiswell claimed that he had been taken advantage of by drug users and dealers.

Pc Fisher added: "We are able to close down houses where drug activity is taking place and this can stop the problems a particular address causes, instantly benefiting the local community. "We make sure that the problem isn't simply pushed elsewhere and ensure that all the relevant services are in place for those who are evicted."

The house in Bernwood Road will now remain boarded up for three months.

It is at least the fourth drugs den closed down by police in Oxford in the past 18 months.

Steve Kilsby, of Canact, said: "I hope that this sends out a strong message that Oxford City Council will not tolerate this behaviour and will take action."