Drug dealers are facing tougher countermeasures

The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency is to be re-named the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency.

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson said it was because the group also dealt with organised crime.

In another move, the minister set up a new body - the Scottish Police Services Authority to co-ordinate services.

It will provide common services to the police and will also develop a new national forensic science service.

The organisation is intended to be in business by April 2007, with a budget of more than �66m and nearly 1,300 staff.

The changes will help the agency to do its job more effectively Cathy Jamieson MSP Justice Minister

It will be run by a board appointed by ministers which will be made up of a convener and up to nine other members - including senior police officers, police authority conveners, and lay people.

The anti-drugs agency, originally set up in 2001, will come under the control of the new authority.

It will also be able to recruit officers directly, rather than depending on secondments from police forces.

Ms Jamieson said the new set-up would bring "strength and clarity" to the police.

She added: "Strong common services are not a threat to the concept of effective, flexible, local policing.

Graeme Pearson had called for greater flexibility

"Ministers have already acted to invest in strengthening our drug enforcement agency.

"The announcement about a new structure, and indeed a more appropriate name, may be technical changes, but they will help the agency to do its job more effectively."

The minister went on: "That has potential benefits for any community facing up to the threat from drugs and organised crime."

The drug agency's annual report revealed in June that throughout 2004 and the first half of 2005 more than �22m in drugs were seized.

Some �30m was taken back in "realisable" assets and 225 people were arrested.

The body's director Graeme Pearson insisted at the time that the war on drugs was being won but he added that he needed "latitude".

He said: "Under current arrangements we require to make contact with the local police force and ask for firearms support from them and that sometimes may take some deal of time."