5. Percentage of positive tests under the Random Mandatory Drug Testing programme in Scottish prisons.

The Scottish Prison Service conducts a programme of Random Mandatory Drug Testing. Each month, 10% of the population in each prison in Scotland is randomly selected for a urine drug test. Other reasons for targeted testing exist, but are not reported here.

Mandatory Drug Testing schemes were piloted at Edinburgh and Cornton Vale prisons in early 1996, followed by a rolling programme which extended the initiative to all prisons by March 1997. Consequently, national data is available only from 1997 onwards.

Indicator

In 1998/99, of a total of 7,162 Random Mandatory Drug Tests conducted in Scottish prisons, 25% tested positive on one or more drugs of misuse ¹ . The underlying rate, which excludes those who may have misused the drugs for which they were tested before entry to prison, was 18%.

Comparable percentages for 1997/98 were 29% and 23%, respectively, Table 4.3.

Background

Cannabis was detected in 15% of all tests taken in 1998/99, followed by opiates 12% and benzodiazepines 6%. In the previous year, cannabis was detected in 20% of all tests, opiates 13% and benzodiazepines 5%.