The SNP has switched the emphasis in Scotland's drugs strategy from harm reduction to recovery and rehabilitation.

The Scottish government hopes that its new five-point plan will help Scots to live drug-free lives and go some way to ridding the country of its unenviable reputation for having more addicts than most comparable European nations.

Also implicit in the strategy, which was published yesterday, is an acceptance that methadone, the heroin substitute prescribed to addicts, has not made enough of an impact on recovery rates.

In 2006 there were about 420 drug-related deaths in Scotland and it is estimated that there are 52,000 problem drug-users.

This last figure is almost certainly a conservative one since many other addicts have not reached the stage of seeking help and are thus not known to the authorities.

Drug-taking, according to official estimates, costs Scots about £2.6billion a year, with a large part of that attributed to crime, as heroin and other drug-users need up to £300 a week to feed their addiction.

As part of its five-point strategy, the SNP will spend £94million during the next three years on tackling drug abuse, and increase funding for health board drug-treatment programmes by almost 4 per cent.

It will also overhaul for the first time services for tackling addiction and send every household an information leaflet, so that parents can warn their children off drugs.

Launching the initiative, Fergus Ewing, the Communities Minister, said that the “guiding purpose” of all drug treatment services would be helping addicts into recovery.

He told MSPs: “In the past there has not been enough focus on achieving positive outcomes for people with drug problems. We must make this a priority for the future.

“We will achieve this by reforming how drugs services are planned, commissioned and delivered. The idea of recovery must be central.

“There has been success in getting people into treatment. But we have been less good about getting them off methadone and into full recovery.”

Mr Ewing described recovery as embracing the principle that rather than concentrating on reducing risk and harm, services should support people to move on towards a drug-free life as active and contributing members of society.

As many as 60,000 youngsters are affected by parental drug abuse in Scotland and Mr Ewing pledged a programme of action to improve identification of children at risk.

Existing powers to seize assets and cash from dealers would also be strengthened and Mr Ewing promised better quality and more consistent treatment for addicts in prisons.

Labour said that the SNP had broken a promise to boost spending on tackling drug abuse by 20 per cent.

The Scottish Tories, who claim to have played a key part in encouraging the Nationalists to bring the new

“recovery” strategy forward, welcomed the shift in focus.

Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, hoped that it would herald a new dawn for Scotland's drug policy. “I congratulate the Scottish government for coming to terms with the failures of recent years, characterised by an attempt to merely manage the problem rather than attack it head on,” she said.

“For too long, we have left those who have surrendered their lives to drugs in desperation and devastation. Let today be the day when we offered new hope and real help.”

David Liddell, director of Scottish Drugs Forum, described the strategy as highly ambitious, and acknowledged that medical help or prison sentences on their own were not nearly adequate to help people to overcome their addiction.