Subj: UK: Mowlam sparks new debate call on drugs



Date: 17 Jan, 2000



Source: The Herald (UK)





Mowlam sparks new debate call on drugs

JENNIFER CUNNINGHAM



The admission by Dr Mo Mowlam, head of the Government's

campaign against drugs, that she smoked cannabis as a

student has triggered fresh calls for proper public debate

on drugs policy in the UK.



It coincides with new findings from the Centre for Drug

Misuse and Research at Glasgow University which suggest that

the rise in the number of drug-related deaths over the past

year could be the tip of an iceberg in which the annual

tally will soon dwarf last year's record figure of 147 in

Strathclyde.



Ms Mowlam's admission yesterday, coupled with her statement:

"I will continue to fight hard against drugs that can kill

people, like heroin and cocaine. I will continue to say to

young people, as I have done for the last two months in the

job, that taking drugs is not within the law and not a

credible thing to do with your life," immediately fuelled

calls for greater openness and debate.



Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said:

"The old zero tolerance argument must stop. We recognise we

now need different messages for different groups. If you are

going to stop people taking drugs, you have to improve their

quality of life in terms of housing, environment and

employment."



Professor Neil McKeganey and Dr Joanne Neale suggest in

today's Herald that the high number of deaths among older

addicts in their 30s is part of a pattern in which people

who have been abusing heroin for 12 or 15 years reach a

point of extreme physical and mental vulnerability.



Dr Laurence Gruer, addictions co-ordinator with Greater

Glasgow Health Board, said many younger addicts also reached

the point where they felt life is hardly worth living.

"About 70% of people actually dying from drugs misuse or

overdose are under 30. The commonest group is between 25 and

30 and there are more under 25 than between 30 and 35.



The ageing of the addicts could not fully explain the large

fluctuation in the number of deaths from year to year, he

argued. One of the biggest increases has been in the number

of deaths in the former Strathclyde area outwith Glasgow,

where the numbers of deaths from drugs increased by 85% from

34 in 1998 to 63 in 1999.



"There are signs that in the last couple of years, quite a

number of people have switched from smoking heroin to

injecting. We see very few people die from smoking heroin,

whereas from injection it lands in the brain with a sudden

splash and can stop the signals from the brain to help you

breathe."



Commenting on Professor McKeganey's call for more emphasis

on services for older addicts, Dr Gruer said: "That is where

the great bulk of our effort already goes. The average age

of people coming into needle exchanges is 29 and the average

age of people on methadone programmes is 30."



He also acknowledged that quite a number of the fatal

overdoses are among people living in hostels, who are very

vulnerable, because a lot of drugs get into hostels, but

said that next year the health board hoped to set up clinics

in these places.