Drugs challenge

Illegal drugs blight many aspects of Scottish life. They cost our economy at least £2.6bn a year and they destroy our communities, as well as blunting the prospects of thousands of children. Those who use them clog our courts and prisons. Scotland has a bigger problem with hard drugs than any of our neighbours, including England and Ireland. How can the country's estimated 52,000 problem drug users move from the road to perdition to the road to recovery? That is the challenge at the heart of the first national drugs strategy since devolution, launched yesterday by the Scottish Government.