 The executive is investing in rehabilitation services |
An extra �6m is to be spent on drug treatment and rehabilitation services in Scotland, it has been announced. Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson said the aim of the 23% rise in funding was to increase the number using the services by 3,000 to 15,600 by 2006/07.
She said the cash would be used to "significantly expand" the number and the range of drug treatment services.
She also defended a website against Tory claims that it teaches children how to take and conceal drugs.
The Conservatives have called on the Scottish Executive to close down its Know the Score drug information site.
Raising awareness
They said it amounted to a manual teaching children how to take and conceal drugs - a claim dismissed as "nonsense" by Ms Jamieson.
The minister said the campaign was supported by police and the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA).
The website is aimed at raising public awareness of the dangers of drugs among young people, parents and teachers.
One section offers descriptions of different drugs, their effects and the risks, along with images of some of the associated paraphernalia. One entry shows a cigarette lighter which has been used to hide tablets of ecstasy.
To jeers from the chamber on Wednesday, Tory justice spokeswoman Annabel Goldie slammed the "harm-reduction" policy of giving addicts methadone, which at the current rate will rise to 800,000 prescriptions at a cost of �9m a year by 2010.
She said: "That projection is not just terrifying, it envisages a Scotland paralysed by drug abuse with increasing numbers of desperate souls parked in the dismal and imprisoning cul-de-sac of methadone dependence - a publicly-funded legalised drug addiction programme.
"The tragedy is: the more we spend on legalised drug addiction the less we have to spend on rehabilitation."
And to standing protestations, Miss Goldie tore into the executive for trying to be cool and follow "politically-correct trendies" by allowing such harm reduction strategies as the publicly-funded website Know the Score, which shows ecstasy tablets concealed in a lighter.
She continued: "This is the executive conniving at telling young people how to hide drugs from their parents and the police. The executive's very own DIY manual on how to end up in trouble if your are not already in it.
"It should be more aptly entitled: Know How to Score. That website is a disgrace."
However, Ms Jamieson said the aim was to let parents know the lengths to which children could go to hide drugs.
Health risks
"It is nonsense to suggest it gives tips to children on how to break the law," she said.
She stressed that the website was providing "factual, accurate and clear" information about health risks from drugs and the penalties for possession and supply.
The executive said public information was just one strand of an integrated approach to combating drugs, which also takes in enforcement and treatment.
The Scottish National Party and the Scottish Socialists want more spent on treatment and rehabilitation.
During a debate at Holyrood on Wednesday, Ms Jamieson announced the additional cash for drug treatment services. She said that a successful programme could cover a range of approaches, including abstinence, detox and harm reduction.
"There must be sufficient services across the spectrum to ensure that when a client discusses his or her treatment with a clinician there is the most appropriate treatment or combination of treatment available to them, not just the programme on which there are places available," she said.
"That is why we will work to create national care standards and reduce waiting times for treatment - and bring in external auditors of services to ensure that services are working together and standards are being met."
She also announced plans to strengthen the links between the criminal justice services and treatment services, and from treatment services into training and employment
The five priorities in the executive's action plan are:
- integrating services
- improving service quality and consistency
- improving access to services
- improving performance and accountability
- reducing drug-related deaths.
The additional �6m will take the total spending on drug treatment and rehabilitation to �32.5m in 2006/07.
The cash will come from the health allocation contained in the budget announced last month.
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The more we spend on legalised drug addiction, the less we have to spend on rehabilitation 
