DRUG-TESTING SCHEME TO CUT CRIME IS LABELLED A FAILURE

A Government scheme to tackle property crime by forcing arrested heroin and
cocaine addicts to submit to regular drug tests has been denounced as a
failure.

Independent analysis of the scheme, commissioned by the Home Office, found
that more than half the addicts breached their court orders and continued
using the drugs.

Narcotics experts said yesterday that the findings showed the Drug
Abstinence Orders programme was not working and questioned the wisdom of
ministers in extending the scheme across the country earlier this month.

Roger Howard, the chief executive of DrugScope, said the programme was
doomed to failure because it offered hardened drug users no treatment for
their habits. "With almost three in five offenders breaching probation
abstinence orders, the Government must rethink how these orders are rolled
out," he said.

Under the scheme, which began last year, people arrested for robbery or
theft or class A drug offences can be tested for drugs at police stations.

The evaluation report, by an independent research consultancy, said that by
the end of February 1,835 arrested people had been tested in three pilot
areas. In Hackney, 63 per cent of those tested showed positive for heroin
and cocaine, with 58 per cent testing positive in Nottingham and 47 per
cent in Stafford and Cannock.

Only 106 of these had since moved on to probation-run abstinence schemes,
which require them to stop taking drugs or face being sent back to court.

The evaluation study found that 61 of the 106 people placed on Drug
Abstinence Orders or Drug Abstinence Requirements had shown positive for
drugs on three consecutive or two non-consecutive tests over a six-week
period. "Breach rates were very high at Nottingham, which is the site where
the new orders have been implemented most extensively," the report said.

The authors said criminal justice professionals were concerned that drug
users were not being given enough help to kick their addictions. "Probation
and magistrates perceive that current breach provisions are potentially
demotivating and an ineffective and inappropriate use of resources."

The findings follow a report earlier this week by the House of Commons'
Home Affairs Select Committee that called for Drug Abstinence Orders to be
amended so that they required access to treatment.