Subj: Scottish prisons to stay tough on cannabis

Date: May 13, 1998

Source: The Scotsman

Scottish prisons to stay tough on cannabis

Jenny Booth

Home Affairs Correspondent

Scotish prison governors will not be ordered to take a more
lenient view of prisoners who smoke cannabis in their cells,
despite Home Office guidance to prison governors south of
the Border.

The Home Office prisons minister, George Howarth, yesterday
announced that mandatory drug testing was to be halved in
English jails, and governors urged to discriminate between
cannabis smokers and heroin injectors and other hard drug
users.

The switch of focus from "soft" to "hard" drugs in the new
Prison Service drugs strategy only refelcted what was
happening in the wider community, said Mr Howarth. "The law
outside prisons recognises that cannabis is a less serious
problem than, for instance, heroin and cocaine, and we are
simply refelcting that.

"We do still accept that prisoners who use cannabis are
breaking the law and they will be treated accordingly, but
we are reflecting the way world is outside prisons."

Until now, 10 per cent of the English and Welsh prison
population has been chosen at random each month and asked to
give a urine sample for mandatory drug testing (MDT). In the
three years that MDT has been in place, the number of
prisoners testing positive for any drug has fallen from 40
per cent to 20 per cent.

Now, the 5.5 million a year MDT programme is to be halved
to 5 per cent of prisoners a month, and governors urged to
clamp down on inmates suspedted of using hard drugs. "We
believe that, by more tightly targeting groups where we
believe there is a serious problem and steering tests in
their direction, we are more likely to solve the serious
problems," said Mr Howarth.

Savings in the prison anti-drugs budget would be used to
develop more drug treatment facilities and provide more
drug-free accommodation in prisons. Area anti-drugs co-
ordinators would be appointed to pool resources between
prisons.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said Scottish
prisons would not be cutting the drug-testing programme nor
suggesting governors soften their approach to cannabis.