Children And Drugs: 1000 Per Year

Around 1000 children are caught with drugs in Scotland every year. The figure, the most robust yet on addiction among the very young, came out yesterday as a high-profile report suggested some illegal substances could be harmless.

The data revealed, for the first time, the number of youngsters referred to the children’s hearing system for possessing drugs. The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) said there were 983 such offenders in 2005-2006, 982 in 2004-2005, and 1015 in 2003-2004.

The figure has been high in recent years, say experts, partly because of the number of children in families where drug use is commonplace.

Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University’s centre for drug misuse research, said quite young children were increasingly using cannabis and more serious drugs. “We have around 50,000 children in families where one or both parents are addicted to illegal drugs. If you add in older siblings and uncles and aunts, there are probably as many as 150,000 children who have close family members involved in illegal drugs.”

Like many of the rest of Scotland’s most troubled and troublesome children, those involved in drug use are highly likely to have been referred to the hearing system on welfare grounds long before they started offending.

The SCRA said 1426 children were referred to the system last year because of welfare concerns over drink or drug misuse. That figure has also remained consistently high: it was 1369 in 2004-2005 and 1611 in 2003-2004.

Graeme Pearson, head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, believed young drug users are often supplied by people their own age. He called for Scotland to stick with the executive’s three-pronged attack on drugs – focusing on health, education, and enforcement. The number of problem drug users, he said, had slipped from 55,000 to 51,000. He questioned the findings of a major report yesterday from the Royal Society for the Arts after a two-year study.

The society argued that not all drug abuse was problematic and claimed that much of Britain’s current drugs policy was based on “moral panic”. It recommended focusing drugs policy on harm reduction and called for safe places where addicts could inject.

Professor Anthony King, who chaired the society commission, said: “The evidence suggests that a majority of people who use drugs are able to use them without harming themselves or others.

Mr Pearson said: “It is not our experience of the problematic 51,000 drug abusers and their familiesthat use of illicit substances can be harmless.”

Professor McKeganey said: “The need now is to focus first and foremost on drug prevention and to recognise that we will only reduce drug-related harm when we are successful in reducing the numbers of young people using illegal drugs.”