Teens warned over smoking heroin

[Lunar Loops]

This from BBC News Scotland website:


Teens warned over smoking heroin


The campaign seeks to explode myths about smoking heroin

Smoking heroin is as addictive and dangerous as injecting the drug, the deputy justice minister has said.
Hugh Henry gave the warning as he launched the second wave of the Scottish Executive's Know the Score anti-heroin campaign.
Mr Henry said the first phase of the drive, which ran last year, had resulted in a 50% rise in calls to the Know the Score advice line.
The next part of the campaign is aimed primarily at 13 to 19-year-olds. Radio and television adverts will roll out from Monday. The campaign aims to convey the message that heroin leads to addiction whichever way it is taken.


Mr Henry said: "Misconceptions can often cause confusion.
"But with a drug like heroin they can cost lives.
"I don't want anyone to be in any doubt that heroin, however you take it, is an addictive and destructive drug."
Mr Henry cited the most recent statistics which showed that in 2004, heroin and morphine were responsible for 356 deaths in Scotland.
"That is why we will continue to hammer home the message - heroin will rob you of all you possess, whether you smoke it or inject it," he said.
"This campaign is our opportunity to prevent young people from throwing their lives away. "The first phase of our anti-heroin campaign was a great success. We need to sustain and build on that achievement."

However, Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said the campaign could inadvertently encourage youngsters to try drugs.
"The Know the Score website shows our children the paraphernalia of drug abuse and even how to conceal drugs from parents," she said.
"Those who are at risk must be protected with an abstinence message."
Ms Goldie also accused the executive of failing to tackle drug abuse.
"The decline and final demise of Scotland Against Drugs in March was a very sad symptom of how the executive has lost the war against drugs and is at sea about what to do," she said. "Those who peddle in death and are responsible for this cancer eating away at our society must be given harsh penalties in our courts so that a strong signal is sent that Scotland has had enough and is fighting back."