So compelling in everything he did in his round of 64 on Friday, Snedeker was a changed man for large parts of his third round, a shadow of the composed character of 24 hours before. All that was good about his game evaporated, all the unerring tee-shots, the accuracy of his irons, the deftness of wedges and the brilliance of his putts – all gone, spectacularly.

Snedeker, though, is one hell of a fighter. He grappled like hell with his game and managed to birdie his final hole to give himself a chance of taking the Claret Jug, a chance that looked like it was fading into oblivion. His 73 put him four behind Adam Scott, though. Scott is now the hottest favourite to win the first major of his career, and the first by an Australian since Greg Norman in 1998. He’s on 11-under with Snedeker and the resurgent Graeme McDowell locked together on 7-under. Tiger Woods is next. It never quite happened for him yesterday. He shot 70 and begins the final day five strokes behind Scott.

In many ways, though, it was Snedeker who once again captured the imagination, such was the eventfulness of his day. He had a one-shot lead over Scott standing on the first tee and by the time they holed out on the 14th green, he was six behind, so his recovery should not be underestimated. There were so many moments that illustrated how profoundly his game deserted him, but that 14th was as good any of them. He drove it in the rough, which he rarely did on Friday, then chunked a chip, which he couldn’t have done the day before, when he was hot, even if he’d tried. It was his sixth bogey of the day. When you consider that he’d played the first 40 holes of this championship without dropping a shot then you get a picture of how awful it was for the son of Nashville. Not so much country and western as a serious case of the blues.

In all of this, Scott was moving beautifully into a commanding lead. As Snedeker retreated, the role of challengers-in-chief fell to McDowell and Woods, both of whom will still feel they have every chance of winning this evening. We shall see. Snedeker has a chance, too, of course, but you wonder about his spirit now. It has taken a pounding.

The strangest thing was that there was no hint of his travails as he parred his way through the first four holes, the first chink coming on the 5th where he missed a 4-foot putt for par. On Friday, you could have put a blindfold on him and he’d have still made it. In the third round you could have drawn him a map and he wouldn’t have got close.

One by one the things that marked him out as a special player in his opening two rounds began to drop like skittles in a bowling alley. One of the key features of his rise was his ability to plot his way around the trouble, most notably the bunkers. In his 41 holes played he hadn’t been in one. In his 42nd he ploughed straight into the face of a fairway trap and had to play out sideways. It was then that he lost his lead – and his confidence. Right alongside him, Scott made merry.

The bogeys came in clusters after that. When, at last, he broke the destructive sequence with a birdie on the 16th he was struggling with his game as if he was on horseback in a rodeo. He is not completely out of it, but neither will he forget what happened here in a hurry.

It had been the oddest day at Lytham, a day of sunshine and little wind; a golfer’s dream. Conditions could scarcely have been more perfect but for the longest time there was something missing; a little movement on moving day.

Until Zach Johnson burned it up with a 66, most of the traffic was in reverse gear. Some guys got it going, like Bubba Watson, but then found trouble and lost momentum. Only a few out there managed to maintain it, the most heart-warming of them being Mark Calcavecchia, one of the great characters of the game, but the most impressive of all, before Scott began to do this thing, was Johnson, a person of faith whose golf game is so good right now you might think it’s been touched by something celestial.

Johnson won in America last weekend. They say it’s hard to win a tournament before a major championship and then contend in the major, but he’s debunking that myth. “On the 2nd hole I made a bogey with an 8-iron in my hand,” he said. “I should have hit 9-iron but I hit 8-iron. Just terrible. Bad yardage, bad club and I made a horrible bogey. Then on the next hole I hit a terrible lag putt from 30 feet and ran it 10 feet by the hole, but made it coming back. Also I had a couple of chunked 9-irons in the fairway on 16 and 17.”

The self-mocking didn’t last, though. Johnson may be too far behind Scott, but he’s playing wonderfully. One of the shots of the day was his approach on the 18th which he put to a foot. “I didn’t even mark it. I closed my eyes [putting it].” Snedeker closed his eyes on that same hole later in the day, but for altogether different reasons. His birdie brought him relief on a fiendishly trying day.

(UKPA)
–
9 hours ago 

First Minister Alex Salmond will lead a trade delegation to London this week as the world’s attention turns towards the capital for the start of the 2012 Olympics.

The mission aims to exploit the global interest in the Games by showcasing Scottish industries and promoting investment in the country, officials said.

A special facility on Pall Mall, dubbed Scotland House, will host more than 40 formal and informal events to help promote what the country has to offer to a global audience.

Mr Salmond will be joined by Finance Secretary John Swinney; Shona Robison, the Minister for the Commonwealth Games and Sport; External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop and Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead, as part of the “extensive programme of engagement” over the coming weeks.

Mr Swinney said: “The Scottish Government and our enterprise agencies are working tirelessly to secure new jobs and investment to Scotland – the 2012 Olympics provide a good opportunity to showcase Scotland‘s strengths on an international stage.

“Thousands of key influences in the world of business, tourism and sport will be travelling to London for this event and we will be making sure they hear our clear message that Scotland is a great place to live, work and do business.”

Details of the mission emerged after a week in which it which it was confirmed that Scotland has followed the UK economy into double-dip recession. Unemployment, however, fell for the fourth month in a row.

“Our trade mission will build on our ongoing work to strengthen recovery and stimulate growth,” Mr Swinney added.

The mission is part of the Holyrood administration’s plan to reach major UK and overseas companies that currently do not have operations in Scotland.

The First Minister will launch Scotland House and a programme of events towards the end of the week.

Copyright © 2012 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

21 July 2012
Last updated at 23:22 GMT

Services tackling violence against women and children in Scotland are to receive more than £34m in funding over the next three years, it was announced.

The Scottish government said the money would support 138 projects.

They include schemes which provide support for women who are suffering from domestic abuse, or for those who have been violently or sexually abused.

The health secretary said it reflected the government’s high priority in tackling violence against women.

Nicola Sturgeon said: “I have always been very clear that violence against women will not be tolerated.

“Since 2007, funding for violence against women work has doubled and the Scottish government has demonstrated its commitment, despite budget constraints, to maintaining spending in this crucial area of work.”

Kirstie Agnew, 44, claimed Nasserdine Menni proposed over a cup of tea — and
promised her £10,000 if she accepted.

When she knocked him back, the monster vowed she’d still get the cash if she
fixed him up him a bride instead.

The mum-of-four, who lived in the same Glasgow tower block as Menni, told how
he made his bizarre offer after bumping into her in the lift.

She said: “One day he asked me if I wanted to come in for a cup of tea. I said
I did, and he led me into his flat.

“There was very little furniture and there were no carpets on the floor. He
had a lot of rugs instead, and lots of things that looked religious, as if
they’d be used for praying.

“He sat me down at the kitchen table and we were chatting away quite happily.
He was telling me that he’d lived in England, but moved to Scotland to look
at universities. Then he went all serious, and asked if I would marry him,
to get a visa. He said he would give me £10,000.”

Embarrassed Kirstie tried to shrug off the proposal — but Menni refused to let
it go.

She said: “I laughed, but he was serious, so I had to say that no, I didn’t
want to marry him — even for £10,000.

“Then he asked if I knew any girls that he could marry instead, and said that
if I could fix him up I’d get the money.

“I said I couldn’t help him, and then he started pretending it was all a joke
— but I knew he was serious.”

Menni — dubbed a “master of disguise” by cops — was convicted on Friday of
funding terrorism after an 11-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

He helped finance a suicide car bombing in Sweden by fiddling benefits and
using cash he earned in city restaurants as a kitchen porter.

A probe involving British cops and American FBI agents exposed Menni’s links
to crazed Muslim extremist Taimour Abdulwahab — who blew himself up in an
explosion in Stockholm in December 2010.

He denied being a “financier” but was found guilty of passing £5,725 to
Iraqi-born Swede Abdulwahab. Cops nicked Menni in a tower block in Whiteinch
— where Kirstie lived on the floor above him — two months after the blast,
after tracing phone calls between him and Abdulwahab.

The jury returned a not proven verdict for a charge of conspiracy to murder
Swedish citizens.

But they found him guilty of providing sums of money he knew or suspected
would be used for terrorism.

Menni — who also had fake French and Kuwaiti identities — left a false trail
at every turn. Investigators still don’t know his date of birth, but believe
him to be 31 or 32.

The Algerian will be sentenced next month.

Before he was led off to the cells, Menni said to judge Lord Matthews: “Thank
you very much, my Lord, for the justice in Scotland.”

nick.sharpe@the-sun.co.uk

MARK FISHER

I’m expecting to find a lot of August’s theatrical energy in some less familiar places. That will be true in spectacular style at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, where the Edinburgh International Festival is giving the Lowland Hall a makeover to allow room for three major shows: Ariane Mnouchkine’s formidable Parisian company Théâtre du Soleil with the epic adventure of Les 
Naufragés Du Fol Espoir; Grzegorz Jarzyna and Poland’s T R Warszawa with a Macbeth dripping with the violence of today’s Middle East; and Christoph Marthaler and Theater Basel with a leftfield response to My Fair 
Lady retitled Meine Faire Dame – Ein Sprachlabor.

On the Fringe, a number of new kids on the block will also be absorbing my time. I’m looking forward, for example, to hanging out in the Famous Spiegeltent in its new home in front of the Assembly Rooms, while just down the hill, it’ll be fascinating to see how Newcastle’s Northern Stage transforms St Stephen’s with a programme drawn entirely from the north of England. The company’s own production of five short plays by New York’s Will Eno has great word-of-mouth.

Also nearby, the Institut Francais d’Ecosse is upping its profile with a nine-show programme, primarily performed in English but with a strong French flavour. I can already recommend It’s So Nice, a sideways tribute to Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I by Belgium’s Oh My God, and I’m intrigued by the table-top puppetry of Ma Biche Et Mon Lapin.

Across town, Summerhall has a tempting programme of international and experimental theatre, dance and art, including Edinburgh’s Stellar Quines with a Québécois play called 
The List starring Maureen Beattie and designed by John Byrne.

KATE COPSTICK

I have waited a long time for Otto Kuhnle, the genial German 2010 Malcolm Hardee Award Winner, to bring his own show to Edinburgh. Ich Bin Ein Berliner at Assembly George Square is here, and he is an unadulterated joy to spend an hour with. Also spreading his idiosyncratic version of joy around is Sam Simmons (at Gilded Balloon Teviot), a kind of comedy genius, and a definite force for funny in the world. About The Weather promises Simmons’ trademark mix of weird and wonderful.

While we are on the subject of joy, Charlie Baker is bringing his first solo Edinburgh show to the Pleasance. Baker is a terrific writer, he sings, he dances and Freshly Baked is the kind of clever cuddle of a show we all sometimes crave.

Stuart Goldsmith’s Prick will definitely be worth seeing at the Pleasance Courtyard, and an hour in the 
custody of ex-copper Alfie Moore, in his show I Predicted A Riot (also at the Pleasance), is a recommended sentence.

Wil Hodgson is right back on form this year and the talent that won him Perrier Best Newcomer now brings you Kidnapped By Catwoman – marvellous memoir-comedy with a unique voice, at the Stand Comedy Club. Lewis Schaffer is back, dyspeptic, self-loathing and appallingly hilarious as ever (at Laughing Horse @ Free Sisters) although this year he might be out-bittered by American Eddie Pepitone aka The Bitter Bhudda. Bloodbath (at Just the Tonic at the Tron) promises “social rage and self-doubt” – my kind of show.

Finally, the Free Fringe is bigger and better than ever. Explore it. You have nothing to lose.

SUSAN MANSFIELD

I will be welcoming the return of familiar faces such as Daniel Kitson, whose show at the Traverse didn’t even have a title when the programme went to press (“As of 1.52pm GMT on Friday April 27th 2012, this show has no title”), yet still became the fastest-selling show at the venue. It looks like we’re all of the same mind: with writing that good, who cares?

It’s also great to see the return of my favourite writer of comic song, Mitch Benn (Reduced Circumstances at The Stand Comedy Club), albeit in new slimline form. Of several plays on the Fringe tackling different aspects of being a soldier, The Two Worlds Of Charlie F (Pleasance Courtyard) looks particularly poignant, a play about the realities of war, injury and readjustment to civilian life performed by a cast of 14 injured servicemen and women, many of them amputees. For the Art Festival, Talbot Rice hosts the first ever Scottish exhibition for Tim Rollins K.O.S. (Kids of Survival), a unique collective which began when Rollins started an art project for disenfranchised teens in the Bronx and is now represented in major museums around the world.

LEE RANDALL

Whoa, is that the time? They’re filling George Square with tents, building a bar at the Pleasance, and I’ve still not had time to memorise what’s on offer at the International, Fringe or Book Festival. I feel almost as unprepared as Mr Buckle – I say almost, because I’m such a rabid fan that I have bought three precious tickets to go see those glamour-puss chanteuses, Camille O’Sullivan and Lady Carol (at the Assembly Rooms on George Street), and for the Pajama Men, doing improv here for the first time (at Assembly George Square). Cannot! Wait! I’m also keen to see my pals Phill Jupitus and Jo Caulfield at the Stand Comedy Club, especially because Phill’s put a surprising new twist on his show that underscores his unsung versatility as an entertainer.

AIDAN SMITH

When you become a parent everything changes, including the festival, so no more weekend-long experimental Polish theatre or shows promising “live sex on stage”. Tiddler And Other Terrific Tales, at Underbelly, is an Edinburgh adaptation of another bedtime opus by Julia Donaldson (though in our house we like equal credit given to felt-pen wizard Axel Scheffler). This will be Scamp 
Theatre’s tenth Edinburgh. Archie 
and I loved their Stick Man two 
years ago and my laddie expects to 
see every single fishie in its right 
place: sunfish, spider-fish, devil-fish, dab, little Johnny Dory, the lot.

MOIRA JEFFREY

Edinburgh can sometimes forget that it has one shoulder on the shore, so it’s wonderful that the most exciting commission for this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival is in the heart of the city centre but responds to the siren call of the capital’s maritime history.

Berlin-based Glaswegian Susan Philipsz treads a careful line between timeless charm and very specific stories in sound works that combine word and song, enduring ideas with the passing frailty of the human voice. Her last big Scottish artwork, Lowlands for the GI Festival, won her the Turner Prize.

Timeline will respond to the city’s iconic landmark the One o’Clock Gun, with a sequence of sound installations running from Nelson’s Monument to the castle and citing everything from the Odyssey to Edinburgher John Robison’s invention of the siren. You can hear it at a number of sites daily until 2 September.

Timeline is just one of a number of commissions which indicate that, after taking on the EAF directorship in time for last year’s festival, Sorcha Carey is getting her teeth into programming on her own terms. Among her innovations was the partnership with ultra-smart producers Trigger, whose Detours programme pushed the boat out on live events. This year a series of intimate performances will see figures including comedian Simon Munnery respond to art exhibitions across the city.

I’m particularly looking forward to Nic Green’s Detour on 4 August, her responses to Tania Kovats’ Rivers, her new artwork for sculpture garden Jupiter Artland.

ALISON KERR

In many ways, looking at this year’s Edinburgh Jazz Blues Festival programme gave me a sense of déjà vu – but closer inspection reveals that acts I heard last year are not necessarily doing the same thing or being shown in the same context. The most intriguing of these is Curtis Stigers (Le Monde, tomorrow until Friday), who is playing a five-day residency in a much more intimate setting than he has played when in Scotland in recent years.

Another singer from last year 
whom I’m looking forward to 
hearing again is Cécile McLorin Salvant, a wonderful vocalist who exudes the brightness and joie de vivre of the young Billie Holiday and will be 
heard with her own band (Salon Elegance, Thursday) and as the guest with the World Jazz Orchestra (Festival Theatre, Saturday) when, led by the wonderful Scottish baritone saxophonist, and former member of the Ellington band Joe Temperley, it dishes up some of the exotic suites written by the Duke to reflect different parts of the world.

After catching them for the first time in years at the recent Leith Jazz Festival, Edinburgh’s own Diplomats of Jazz (Royal Overseas League, Friday), exponents of joyful 1920s-style jazz, are high on my to-hear list as I remember it from my earliest festival visits as a teenager in the 1980s.

And speaking of local talent, one not-to-be-missed residency in the Fringe programme is that of trumpeter Colin Steele and pianist Brian Kellock (The Jazz Bar, 6-11 August), playing together as a duo for the first time.

STUART KELLY

Short of cloning myself, I’ve no idea how to be at all the events I’d like to attend at this year’s Book Festival. There is a strand featuring some of the most exciting transatlantic talent: Ben Marcus, 
Colson Whitehead, Nathan Englander and 
Junot Diaz are raising the benchmark for how to combine the biggest ideas with the most heartbreaking stories. From Britain, there’s Ned Beauman, Gwendoline Riley, Alice Oswald, Nick Harkaway, Will Self 
and China Miéville, and the intriguing Deborah Levy, whose Swimming 
Home is a devastating, pitch-perfect study of buried griefs. Perhaps the most potentially controversial part of the festival is the series of events in commemoration of the 1962 Writers’ Conference, which will be worth going to just to see if it sparks another Stair-Heid Rammy (or if the water on stage is replaced by whisky, or if some writers turn up pharmaceutically enhanced, as happened 50 years ago). One final, left-field choice: Laurent Binet’s HHhH – a book that redefines the possibilities and the limits of the historical novel.

COLIN SOMERVILLE

I can recommend two superior cabaret acts to savour this Fringe. One is the exquisite stylings of The Lost Fingers from Canada, who channel Paris’ Hot Club through contemporary rock, such as Paradise City, to produce an incredibly cool sound in their show Lost In The 80s at the Famous Spiegeltent. The other is The 27 Club 
at the Acoustic Music Centre @ St Bride’s. Somebody had to do it eventually, and why not the overlooked talent of Jack Lukeman, still struggling to replicate his success in his native Ireland in the UK? “It”, of course, is the disproportionate number of pop stars who have spun off this mortal coil at the age of 27. Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix – the list goes on. I’m also looking forward to Toots and the Maytals at the Liquid Room on 9 August – one of reggae’s true originals still touring and recording, making a most welcome visit to the Fringe at the Liquid Room on 9 August.

CLAIRE BLACK

I want to see Sean Hughes because I chased him around the Royal Academy Summer Show trying to interview him. Oh, and because he’s doing two shows this year – Life Becomes Noises at the Pleasance – about the death of his father in 2010 – and his trademark irreverent and inventive stand-up show (at the 
Gilded Balloon). I’m also keen to see the LSO with Valery Gergiev and Nicola Benedetti at the Usher Hall on 16 August – the maestro, and one of Scotland’s most celebrated musicians playing a piece (Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No 1) with which she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 2004, when she was 
just 16. Who wouldn’t want to witness what happens this time around? Also Barbara Hammer: Incorporating The Lesbian Museum And The Hidden Hammer at Summerhall on 25 August. Barbara Hammer’s grandmother was a cook for DW Griffiths, and she is a pioneering filmmaker and artist. At 73, she’s received retrospectives at Tate, MoMA and Jeu de Paume in Paris focusing on the work she’s made, including the first avant-garde films to address lesbian sexuality. To hear her speak is really a very special opportunity.

ANDREW EATON-LEWIS

On the face of it, the absence of the Edge festival this year has resulted in fewer gigs, but this is the Fringe – choice is never going to be a problem, you just need to look harder. I recommend two Edinburgh bands who are raising their game with big, one-off shows at the Queen’s Hall. On 15 August, FOUND 
team up with Aidan Moffat to put on a live version of Unravel, their ingenious art installation in which Moffat tells the same story in different ways depending on what’s going on in the room. At the Queen’s Hall live Tweeting from the audience will shape what happens on stage. And on 4 August, Withered Hand – the full band version rather than Dan Willson solo – are playing a headline show with special guests and Josie Long compering. Willson sings beautiful, delicate songs and is funny and charming too.

Elsewhere, I’m looking forward to The Intervention, a new play by Dave Florez, whose Somewhere Beneath It All, A Small Fire Burns Still was my favourite show last year, and pretty much everything at Summerhall.

For more information, visit www.edfringe.com, www.eif.co.uk (International Festival), www.edinburghartfestival, www.edinburghjazzfestival.com and www.edbookfest.co.uk.

German electro synth-pop aside, I’ve been following the real deal that is, of course, the cycle race.

The reason for my new passion is Britain’s Bradley Wiggins — who, barring catastrophe, should win the competition today, having sported the leader’s jersey for the Tour’s last stage. He’ll make history as the first Brit to win it.

For Wiggins to triumph in one of the world’s most gruelling sporting events is an amazing feat. No other British rider has finished better than fourth in the event’s 109-year history — and it was Wiggins who did just that three years ago.

He comes across as the ideal sporting personality — mainly because he actually has one — and even boasts a passion for mod culture. Under that cycling helmet is the quintessential haircut inspired by the Modfather himself, former Jam frontman Paul Weller — Wiggins’ idol.

Weller wished the cyclist luck this week. That’s probably given him the added impetus to finish first.

Wiggins is also a talented self-taught guitarist and self-confessed music freak whose favourite bands are The Jam, Oasis, The Who and Small Faces — the soundtrack to my uni days and some of my favourite bands too.

What I don’t share with Wiggins is a collection of classic scooters. He reportedly has a fine assortment of vintage Lambrettas and Vespas.

If they ever remake Quadrophenia Bradley will surely be at the front of the peloton with those credentials.

I can see it now — a racing bike resplendent with chrome mirrors and Wiggins coasting around Brighton chanting “We Are the Mods!”

Maybe not. It isn’t his style. Talking of which, he’s bought into mod culture wholesale by collaborating with mod-favoured label Fred Perry to co-design a range of cyclewear.

But he’s not all style over substance. The 14th stage of the Tour was hit by saboteurs this week, who threw tacks onto the road (I thought that only happened in The Beano) and 30 riders suffered punctures.

Wiggins, leading at the time, slowed the pace to allow the defending champ to return to the group.

The French media have been so enamoured with his sporting display that they’ve taken to calling him “Le Gentleman” and greet him with shouts of “allez Wiggo!” as he hurtles past.

Actually, it probably has more to do with the fact that he speaks fluent French and is articulate — not to mention the fact he’s technically not British, since he was born in Belgium.

But don’t tell them. Anyway, if he wins he’s definitely British, right? Like Andy Murray.

Loads of British cycling fans have overlooked that point as they race to Paris this weekend hoping to see a Brit win.

Travel companies reported a rise in searches and bookings for the French capital.

A Eurostar spokesman said services to Paris this weekend were likely to be very busy and that “sporting success is clearly at the top of people’s agenda”.

With the Olympics round the corner, here’s hoping Wiggins can do it for Team GB.

I wonder if he has a copy of Kraftwerk’s Tour de France?

Its survey found 9.3 per cent of people aged 16-59 had taken Ecstasy, which is regaining its popularity in Scotland after years in decline.

Scotland also had the greatest proportion of LSD users (5.8 per cent), and the third highest cocaine problem (8.4 per cent), after England and Wales, and Sweden.

But although more than a quarter of people in Scotland have smoked cannabis, that was less than in Denmark, ­Italy, France and the Czech Republic, the report found.

The EMCDDA 21012 survey looked at illegal use of five drugs – Ecstasy, cocaine, LSD, cannabis and amphetamines – in 30 European countries in the 15-64 age group and found that, overall, drug use was more common across the board in the UK than on the continent.

Drug education experts believe the downturn and the rise in youth unemployment is fuelling the use of drugs by young people.

Ecstasy has been linked to at least three deaths in the past two years. Police fear more is being produced to meet growing demand in Scotland. Widespread acceptance of drug use is also stimulating demand for so-called “legal highs” – alternative chemical substances also linked to the recent deaths of music festival fans.

John Arthur, of drug education charity Crew 2000, said: “We were expecting a rise [in drug use] because of the recession, but it seems that rather than more people using, it’s a case of people who are already using are now taking more.”

The Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency has recorded a dramatic increase in Ecstasy seizures, up 60 per cent in 2010-11. Of the 157.7kg of Class A drugs seized last year, almost 100kg was ­Ecstasy tablets.

Deputy Chief Constable Gordon Meldrum, director general of the SCDEA, said: “We have seized the largest amount of Ecstasy seen in Scotland for many years.

“The total quantity seized represents more than 60 per cent of our overall recovery of Class A drugs, indicating a ­direct shift in the product of choice for serious organised crime groups.

“Reducing the harm of illegal substances, and the demand for them, is crucial and a lot of police effort is dedicated to supporting this drive – particularly in the education and awareness of young ­people.”

Drugs experts believe Scotland’s problems with substance abuse will only get worse due to the bleak economic outlook and welfare cuts. Sean McCollum, head of operations for Scottish Drugs Forum said: “The high rates of drug use in Scotland highlighted by the report comes as no surprise. Last year, we said that poverty was probably the biggest component in Scotland’s drugs problem and the current economic climate has put an even greater spotlight on the link between drug use and poverty.

“Recent and proposed changes to the welfare system will exacerbate this and these UK government policies have the potential to undermine 
the Scottish Government’s strategy to address problematic drug use.”