Scotland’s approach to blood-borne viruses and drugs in prison is undergoing a transformation. To a certain extent the Scottish Prison Service’s hand has been forced by the scale of the drug problem in Scotland. An estimated 80% compared to 40% in England and Wales are drug users when they enter prison. Fundamentally the spectre of another Glen Ochil outbreak (see below) haunts the SPS.

At the end of 2004, Scottish jails proposed to give heroin injection kits to prisoners. Inmates would be given clean syringes and swabs on a no-questions-asked basis. Dr Andrew Fraser, Head of Healthcare for the Scottish Prison Service said he feared an epidemic of blood-borne viruses would sweep through jails unless urgent safety measures were taken. Bleaching tablets have been available in Scotland since 1993.

In 2005 Scottish prison chiefs went a step further and announced they were to scrap Mandatory Random Drug Tests (MRDTs).

Although the decision has produced an outcry about ‘losing the war on drugs’ one chief of police said: “We have got to try something new, because the systems that have been tried up to now aren’t working. Drug tests have pushed drug users in jail to move from the long-lasting cannabis to the hard-to-detect smack.”