Radical drugs strategy

An end to short prison sentences for drug misusers convicted of minor crimes is the first hint that the new drugs strategy for Scotland, due by the summer, will contain some radical thinking. The admission by Fergus Ewing, the minister responsible for drugs policy, that prison is not the right place to deal with drug addicts because meaningful treatment requires longer than a few weeks, is a recognition that a system that returns drug-using offenders for repeat sentences of less than six months is failing to tackle the root of the problem.