Scotland
Unveils
Drug
Enforcement
Agency
1/15/00
Kerie Sprenger for DRCNet, [email protected] With the aims of reducing the availability of drugs in Scotland, smashing organized drug rings, and arresting drug traffickers and suppliers, plans for the new Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency were unveiled by Deputy Justice Minister Angus MacKay in Paisley last month. In a press release issued by John Booth of the Information Directorate, it was revealed that the SDEA will appoint a Director, hire 200 new officers for the fledgling organization, and begin mapping the agency’s strategies and tactics in February. The SDEA will have a œ10 million budget for its first two years, and thereafter their budget will be confirmed annually by Parliament, as are all police agency budgets in Scotland. The overriding concept of the SDEA, according to Scottish Executive Spokesman Richard Bailey, is to enhance the passage of communication between agencies such as the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and HM Customs and Excise (HMCE), so that the network of agencies is capable of everything from identifying, tracking and proving a drug crime, to the arrest of suspects. The SDEA will encourage cooperation and allow agencies to operate at the correct time in an investigation, as well as help prevent overlaps of investigational jurisdiction. The SDEA has existed as an informal agency for over a year. Its unveiling in an official capacity is intended to formalize its working procedures and give government backing to an existing program. When asked whether the SDEA would resemble the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in its procedures and the scope of its power, a seemingly startled Mr. Bailey told the Week Online, "The SDEA will have to act within existing law. It might be able to highlight areas where the law is weak and perhaps stimulate change by bringing it to the attention of policy makers, but it will have no ability to make its own laws... Parliament will remain in control of the law." "Ultimately," he added, "the operating procedures of the SDEA will be self-regulated, though the actual methods will have to fit within existing law." Mr. Bailey further said that operating procedures dealing with internal policy will be changeable by the organization in a bid to keep it flexible. The Scottish government intends to monitor the SDEA carefully to avoid mistakes made by similar agencies in other parts of the world. "Of course, every country offers its own complexity to the problem," he said.
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