Drugs in Scotland: Report of ministerial taskforce

DRUGS IN SCOTLAND: MEETING THE CHALLENGE

PREVENTION

5. The Scottish Office should continue to support, and participate in, mass media campaigns at GB level, providing that they are relevant to Scottish circumstances (para 3.4).

6. Priority should be given to the development of preventive work targeted on groups of young people who because of their environment or other factors are particularly vulnerable to drug misuse pressures. The Health Education Board for Scotland (HEBS) and The Scottish Office should determine how this is to be taken forward, if necessary deflecting resources from The Scottish Office's drugs publicity budget (para 3.8).

7. Local authority social work departments and the voluntary sector child care organisations should- incorporate drugs prevention activity in their work with children and young people. Their efforts in this direction should be co-ordinated with local and national health and education initiatives (para 3.14).

8. High level co-ordination of policy on drug prevention at national level should be carried out by the proposed Scottish advisory committee. At local level the proposed Drug Action Teams should develop prevention strategies for their areas which are consistent with national policy and aimed at complementing and building on the work undertaken by HEBS and local agencies (para 3.15).

9. If the peer-led education approach being tried in various Scottish projects proves successful, it should be developed (para 3.18).

10. Pilot community drug action schemes should be developed in a number of areas with a view to determining whether such an initiative could be applied successfully on a wider basis (para 3.38). In particular, these pilot schemes should pursue the development of alternative activities which seek to engage young people at a time in their lives when they are attracted by excitement and risk (para 4.31).

11. Local authorities should ensure that social workers preparing reports for Children's Hearings or supervising children in care are alert to the possibility that a child may be experimenting with drugs or other substances, and that the misuse of drugs and other substances is routinely monitored to ensure that children in care who have problems in this respect get the help they need at the earliest opportunity (para 3.31).