Girvan Academy pupils in TV cocaine documentary

Feb 12 2010 by Edwin Lawrence, Ayrshire Post (main ed)

A SCHOOL drugs project features in a BBC TV documentary on Sunday night.

Girvan Academy’s Shared Responsibility project will be highlighted in Avalanche: Scotland's Cocaine Epidemic, BBC One Scotland, 10.25 – 11.25pm, Sunday, February 14.

The school took on the ground-breaking project, which included a video link to Francisco Santos Calderon, the vice-president of Colombia.

Senor Calderon answered questions posed by pupils about the growing problem of the cocaine trade.

He visited the school back in 2008 when he was in Scotland for a police chiefs’ conference at Turnberry Hotel.

In the documentary, Senor Calderon speaks about the devastating effect of drugs production on his own country, and measuresbeing taken to counter the cocaine trade.

The hour-long programme also highlights increasingly sophisticated efforts to crack down on the criminal gangs behind the trade and the campaign to educate children and young people of the health risks of taking the drug.

Some experts say cocaine is a bigger threat to Scotland than terrorism. And top officers in the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency have also visited Girvan Academy in conjunction with the project.