\u201cThis report summarises the key findings from a report exploring public attitudes towards illegal drugs and drug misuse in Scotland, based on data from the 2009 Scottish Social Attitudes survey. It focuses in particular on attitudes towards opiate misuse, and on views of potential policy responses to this. However, it also places such attitudes in the context of wider views and experiences of illegal drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main Findings<\/strong> \u25a0 Most people said taking cocaine occasionally is wrong \u2013 76% rated it as 4 or 5 on a scale where 5 meant \u2018very seriously wrong\u2019.<\/p>\n \u25a0 45% of people agreed that \u2018Most people who end up addicted to heroin have only themselves to blame\u2019, while just 27% disagreed.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Around half (53%) disagreed that \u2018most heroin users come from difficult backgrounds\u2019 (29% agreed).<\/p>\n \u25a0 Among those in paid employment, around half (47%) said they would be \u2018very\u2019 or \u2018fairly comfortable\u2019 working alongside someone they knew had used heroin in the past, while around 1 in 5 would be uncomfortable.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Just a quarter (26%) said they would be comfortable with someone who was receiving help to stop using heroin moving near to them, while half (49%) would be uncomfortable.<\/p>\n \u25a0 There was no public consensus on what should be the top government priority for tackling heroin use in Scotland \u2013 32% chose \u2018tougher penalties for those who take heroin\u2019, 32% \u2018more help for people who want to stop using heroin\u2019 and 28% \u2018more education about drugs\u2019.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Just 16% agreed that people who possess heroin for personal use should not be prosecuted (compared with 34% for cannabis).<\/p>\n \u25a0 Public support for providing clean needles to injecting drug users fell from 62% in 2001 to 50% in 2009.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Opinion on educating young people about safer drug use was split \u2013 44% agreed that young people should be given information about how to use drugs more safely, but 40% disagreed.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Four out of five (80%) agreed that \u2018the only real way of helping drug addicts is to get them to stop using drugs altogether\u2019. However, 29% agreed that \u2018most heroin users can never stop using drugs completely\u2019, while 27% said they neither agreed nor disagreed or did not know.<\/p>\n \u25a0 63% disagreed that \u2018Someone who has been a heroin addict can never make a good parent, even if their drug problems are in the past\u2019.<\/p>\n \u25a0 Around two thirds (64%) said that young children of heroin users should be placed into temporary foster care until the parents stop taking heroin. A further 1 in 5 believed the child should stay at home while the family receives help from social workers and just 8% said the child should be permanently adopted by another family.<\/p>\n The full report is also accessible online.<\/p>\n Source: http:\/\/uwsnealb.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/28\/scottish-social-attitudes-survey-2009-public-attitudes-to-drugs-and-drug-use-in-scotland\/ May 25 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThis report summarises the key findings from a report exploring public attitudes towards illegal drugs and drug misuse in Scotland, based on data from the 2009 Scottish Social Attitudes survey. It focuses in particular on attitudes towards opiate misuse, and on views of potential policy responses to this. However, it also places such attitudes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31,68,62,34,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cannabis-marijuana","category-cocaine","category-drug-use-various-effects","category-education","category-heroin-methadone","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u25a0 Support for legalising cannabis \u2013 which increased in Scotland (as in the rest of the UK) in the late 1990s \u2013 has fallen considerably in more recent years, from 37% in 2001 to 24% in 2009. Attitudes towards prosecution for possession of cannabis for personal use also hardened between 2001 and 2009.<\/p>\n