Drugs scene in Grantown described as ‘fairly rampant’
The drugs scene in Grantown has been described as ‘fairly rampant’ by a local Highland councillor.
John Bruce made the comment during questioning of Police Scotland’s Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey police boss.
He said at the latest Highland Council local area committee: “The drugs scene, I believe, is fairly rampant in Grantown in particular.
“Who deals with these people who are out and about with the drugs either pushing them or using them?”
Inspector Craig Johnstone responded at the gathering: “Drug issues in Grantown and throughout the whole of Badenoch and Strathspey are challenging for a variety of reasons.
“This weekend because of Thunder in the Glens we had a significant additional resource at hand and that resulted in drug seizures.
“The more police officers there are available to deal with such things means that we can be more proactive…
“As it stands at this point, a lot of our proactivity is dealing with road casualty reduction which clearly means we have less ability to deal with other issues - it is trying to get the balance and it really is very challenging.”
He added: “Our officers generally are going from call to call to call as there are generally only two on duty at any one time apart from when there is a cross-over on Friday and Saturday nights and we are lucky enough to have four officers on.
“Our resources are getting more and more stretched - every time we think they can not get more stretched it gets slightly more stretched. It is not because police officers and management do not want to deal with it, it is because the numbers do not allow us to.”