THERE was a time when the police measured their success in dealing with drug misuse by the quantities they seized. Officers would stand in front of huge piles of illegal drugs at high-profile press conferences and the talk was always of seizure and crackdown. It was what the police did, and to a large extent, it was what we expected them to do.

But take a look at how things have changed. Ten years ago – even five years ago – the idea of a senior officer such as Chief Inspector Mark Leonard saying that a new strategy on drugs was about harm reduction rather than enforcement would have been unthinkable. And yet that is what Mr Leonard has done. Speaking about Police Scotland’s new strategy on the purchase of unlicensed lifestyle drugs online, he said success would no longer be measured in seizures or arrests, but in how much they could reduce public harm.

For some, this may be an unwelcome departure, but in reality it represents a mature and practical response to a complicated issue. In recent years, there has been a growing demand from Scottish customers for potentially dangerous unlicensed medications. Often, the drugs are bought from India and while they may be licensed and legal there, they are not licensed in the UK and could pose a serious health risk to anyone who buys them.

Pursuing the customers might seem like the first logical step, but no one is breaking the law by buying drugs online and prosecuting those who may sell the drugs on would be impractical. Police Scotland simply does not have the time or resources to make such a strategy feasible.

Instead, as the latest in The Herald’s series on over-the-counter drugs has revealed, Police Scotland is working with Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) to come up with a specific Scottish response. The plan is to develop algorithms so the police and MHRA can see what people are searching for online, and where in Scotland they are searching for it. This will then facilitate health campaigns targeted at specific areas.

The logic behind the new approach is sound. Scotland has a serious drug problem, but it is not entirely the same problem as the rest of the UK – to a large extent, Scots consume different drugs from the other home countries, whether illegal or unlicensed. What the new strategy is about is understanding this, and trying to develop a response that works. A UK-wide, same-size-fits-all strategy would have been less effective.

The strategy also represents a change of tone for anti-drug tactics, and its results should be closely monitored. As Mr Leonard has warned, the MHRA sees online lifestyle drugs as the next big wave of harm coming to Scotland and the old strategies will have to be adapted and updated to cope. Success or failure will be measured not in piles of drugs unveiled at press conferences, but in persuading people that buying unlicensed drugs is a dangerous, and potentially fatal idea.