Given the unsurprising revelation last week of cocaine residue being discovered in a gents' toilets at the Scottish Parliament, is it not time to extend to our MSPs the drugs testing culture increasingly commonplace elsewhere? If it is accepted as legitimate that such as Rio Ferdinand, and many other workers, should be randomly tested for drug use - and action taken when results are positive - is there not an even greater imperative that those who would legislate for the rest of us on this and many other issues should themselves set even higher standards in flushing out any drug users in their ranks?
Curiously, in the many reports on last week's discovery there was a distinct absence of comment on what the Scottish Parliament's current policy is on any MSP found to have a drug habit. The political consensus in Scotland which underpins the present ineffectual strategy for tackling problem drug use would take on greater credibility if there were a top-down lead offered by MSPs in eradicating drug use in the workplace.
Wladyslaw P Mejka,
18b Orwell Terrace, Edinburgh.
RUTH Wishart takes aim, rightly, at the drug cheats in sport (It's time for sport to kick the cheats into touch, October 20). However, in doing so, she also takes a (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek dig at an entire country, with the observation that the Tour de France has had more drug scandals ''than the average Colombian nightclub''.
Colombia is a welcoming, rich and diverse country - not unlike Scotland. However, while traditional stereotypes of Scotland are benign (if occasionally tiresome), those of Colombia clearly are not. Colombia has kept its head up through 40 years of bloody civil unrest and the cynical violence of the global drugs trade. This litany has touched the lives of every family in the country.
In Scotland, as elsewhere, I have witnessed the help and support of the international community, but I have also seen the need for far more understanding of the genuine nature and scale of my country's problems. Fewer jokes at its expense would be a welcome start.
Alexandra Angulo Noriega,
17 Eyre Crescent,
Edinburgh.
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