Drugs initiative could become SNP's finest move

PER head of population, Scotland has more hard drug addicts than most comparable European countries. Yet for many years the policy towards registered drug users has been one of containment, otherwise known as sweeping the problem under the carpet. Addicts have been kept on methadone as a substitute for heroin – 22,000 of them – yet methadone is an opiate and addictive in its own right.

Attempts to wean individual addicts off their habit have been largely platonic and the methadone placebo has been used increasingly as a method of keeping users out of trouble and out of sight. That is not to gainsay the hard work and dedication of t...