Continued from Saturday's edition

Opposition MP Kim Young said that stopping the flow of drugs into the prison is an important step to minimising its use. She hinted that all was not being done to quell the situation as she had heard that a portable ion scan device was sitting in a cupboard at Westgate, unused. She also said that she knew that the drug-sniffing dogs were not at Westagate yet.

With the bill's passing, drug testing can only be conducted with the written permission of the Commissioner of Prisons.

Ms Young commended the Drug Court programme but said that it needed more funding. She questioned why Drug Court had not run for two consecutive weeks, and said that she had heard there was not going to be any next week as “the magistrate had other things to do”.

Health Minister Nelson Bascome later responded by saying that the fact that the drug court had not operated for the last two weeks was a measure of its success because all the clients had moved on to a second phase having been off drugs for three consecutive months.

But that there was a new batch in the first phase and the court would be meeting next week.

Backbencher Delaey Robinson agreed with Government colleagues that the legislation went hand in hand with the ATI initiative but cautioned that care be taken that the authority to test for drugs is not abused or “used in a vindictive way”.

And he also urged the use of existing research and statistical information in support of the policy. The Opposition's Tim Smith pointed to what he said were the bill's deficiencies that it did not specify whether the testing would be random or targeted, made no mention of what would happen if a test came back positive, nor did it specify the chain of custody of the samples.

And backbencher Arthur Hodgson, a former magistrate, said that society had to address the way it alienated its own, if there was to be a lasting solution to the drug problem. “I have some difficulty concerning how we could consider mandatory drug testing in isolation from other problems in society,” he said. But he declared himself supportive of the bill but said it should have been done 20 years ago.

Still Mr. Hodgson criticised the fact that there was no work programme within the prison walls. On a recent visit, he said, he found that training workshops were not being used because of a lack of staff. Work, he said, to approving noises from the UBP benches “should be the first requirement”.

The UBP's Michael Dunkley suggestion that Government was trying to “please all the people all the time” and engaging in “political platitudes”. He said his party supported rehabilitation but would also insist that criminals face the legal consequences of their actions. The prison department “had so many problems, but they want to talk about this bill as being historic,” Mr. Dunkley said. His comments drew an angry denunciation from Lister who said that the Opposition was suffering from memory loss and talking as if drugs in prison or a high recidivism rate began when the PLP became Government.

“It's a disgrace to hear people talking that way,” he said. “What we are doing here is following the programme. And the programme is about rehabilitation and restoration.”

The Minister vowed that the issue of drugs in prison will be fought on all fronts.